1997/10/14 by Michael Hammond, Hammond, Michael
Computer Science · #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Logic, programming, and type systems #Natural Language Processing Techniques #cmp-lg #cs.CL #semigroups and automata theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cmp-lg/9710004
22pp, postscript
arxiv created 1997/10/14 · openalex publication_date 1997/10/14 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper, I propose to implement syllabification in OT as a parser. I propose several innovations that result in a finite and small candidate set. The candidate set problem is handled with several moves: i) MAX and DEP violations are not hypothesized by the parser, ii) candidates are encoded locally, and iii) EVAL is applied constraint by constraint. The parser I propose is implemented in Prolog. It has a number of desirable consequences. First, it runs and thus provides an existence proof that syllabification can be implemented in OT. There are a number of other desirable consequences as well. First, constraints are implemented as finite-state transducers. Second, the parser makes several interesting claims about the phonological properties of so-called nonrecoverable insertions and deletions. Third, the implementation suggests some particular reformulations of some of the benchmark constraints in the OT arsenal, e.g. *COMPLEX, PARSE, ONSET, and NOCODA.