ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with analytical approaches to phonology. It argues that Optimality Theory (OT) addresses issues of learnability more effectively than other theories, and benefits from its ability to incorporate explicit predictive mechanisms. The book then provides a detailed outline of the types of constraint interaction that have been proposed by phonologists working in OT, demonstrating that constraints can be organized and interact in a wide variety of ways. It also how the different modules of grammar can be integrated into a coherent whole through constraint-based theories such as OT, with a particular focus on phonological alternations that are conditioned by morphological processes. The book surveys some of the main predictive differences between rule- and constraint-based formalisms that have taken centre stage in work on Rule-Based Phonology since 1993.
