The typological effects of ABC constraint definitions

Abstract

Recent work under the theoretical banner of Agreement by Correspondence (ABC) has produced a variety of different – and sometimes contradictory – formulations of the constraints central to this framework. In OT, the effects of such definitional choices come out in the factorial typologies they predict. Yet knowing what languages a theoretical system derives is insufficient unless we know why it does so. This requires analysis of the internal ranking structures of the typology itself. This paper compares the typologies produced under different proposed modifications to the main ABC constraints. We analyse the typologies in Property Theory, a theory of typological organisation in OT. Our analyses show that all variations have a common core structure, and that differences in their factorial typologies reduce to differences in how this common structure expands and iterates for different features. This allows for precise delineation of how and why different ABC constraint definitions affect typologies.