The Odds of Eternal Optimization in Optimality Theory

Abstract

The first part of this paper shows that a non-teleological account of sound change is possible if we assume two things: first, that Optimality-Theoretic constraints that do not contribute to determining the winning candidate are ranked randomly with respect to each other, i.e. differently for every speaker; second, that learners acquire as their underlying representations the forms that they detect most often in their environment. The resulting variation-and-selection scheme can be regarded as locally optimizing. It is shown, however, that it is possible that a sequence of such optimizing sound changes ends up in a loop rather than in a single absorbing final state. This kind of cyclic optimization is shown to be exactly what happened in the attested and reconstructed changes in the Indo-European consonant systems. The second part of this paper presents a simulation that shows that cyclic optimization is not only possible but also rather likely: twenty percent of all inventories are in an optimizing loop or heading towards one.