Investigations in Optimality Theory: Typology, Learning, and Modeling

语言中的原则起作用。例如，说得更快需要更少的精确表达，但要清楚需要更精确的表达。如何解决这些冲突？这个项目研究两个相互竞争的假设：绝对优先与妥协。人类是如何做出这些决定的？同样，这个项目研究了两个相互竞争的假设：一次全部或一次一个。研究语言的不同领域--语言学、计算机科学和心理学--对这些假设有不同的看法。本项目所用的方法来自所有这三个学科。类型学的方法来自语言学：不同的语言如何解决相同原则之间的冲突？计算机建模的方法来自计算机科学：开发解决冲突的程序或学习如何用某种语言解决冲突。自然主义的数据分析方法来自于发展心理学：使用幼儿英语学习的数据来测试和改进学习模型。该项目的另外两个特点是创建公开可用的计算工具来完成这项工作，以及通过从一所大型公立大学的经济和种族多样化的学生中雇用本科生研究助理来招募未来的语言学家。

Conflicting principles are at work in language. For example, talking faster requires less precise articulation, but being clear requires more precise articulation. How are these conflicts resolved? This project studies two competing hypotheses: absolute priority versus compromise. How do humans make these decisions? Again, this project studies two competing hypotheses: all at once or one at a time. Different fields that study language -- linguistics, computer science, and psychology -- take different views of these hypotheses.The methods used in this project are drawn from all three of these disciplines. The method of typology comes from linguistics: How do different languages resolve conflicts among the same principles? The method of computer modeling comes from computer science: Develop programs that resolve conflicts or learn how conflicts are resolved in some language. The method of naturalistic data analysis comes from developmental psychology: Use data from young children learning English to test and refine the learning model. Two further features of the project are the creation of publicly available computational tools for doing this work, and the recruitment of future linguists by hiring undergraduate research assistants from the economically and ethnically diverse population of students at a large public university.