Doing Optimality Theory

Doing Optimality Theory brings together examples and practical, detailed advice for undergraduates and graduate students working in linguistics. Given that the basic premises of Optimality Theory are markedly different from other linguistic theories, this book presents the analytic techniques and new ways of thinking and theorizing that are required.

• Explains how to do analysis and research using Optimality Theory (OT) - a branch of phonology that has revolutionized the field since its conception in 1993


• Offers practical, in-depth advice for students and researchers in the field, presented in an engaging way


• Features numerous examples, questions, and exercises throughout, all helping to illustrate the theory and summarize the core concepts of OT


• Written by John J. McCarthy, one of the theory’s leading proponents and an instrumental figure in the dissemination and use of OT today


• An ideal guide through the intricacies of linguistic analysis and research for beginning researchers, and, by example, one which will lead the way to future developments in the field.

John J. McCarthy is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His widely cited but unpublished manuscript “Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction” (with Alan Prince, 1993) has been an important factor in the dissemination of Optimality Theory. He is also the author of Formal Problems in Semitic Phonology and Morphology (1985), A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory (2002), and Hidden Generalizations: Phonological Opacity in Optimality Theory (2007), as well as the editor of Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader (Blackwell, 2004).