Book: Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory
Chapter: 5. Constraining Subcategory-Sensitive MATCH Constraints
Blurb:
Recent work has expanded Con to include Match constraints that are sensitive to subcategories of XP and φ, e.g., Ishihara’s (2014) sp.Match(XP [+max] , φ [+max] ). Admitting subcategory-sensitive Match constraints leads to two theoretical problems: first, a proliferation of possible Match constraints, and second, the emergence of Match constraints which enforce syntax-prosody non-isomorphism, e.g., sp.Match(XP [−max] , φ [+max] ). This chapter presents the results of a SPOT investigation showing that two sets of subcategory-sensitive Match constraints drive non-isomorphism: (i) those in which only the second argument has a feature specification for its subcategory, e.g., sp.Match(XP, φ [+max] ), and (ii) those in which the first and second arguments have conflicting specifications for subcategory, e.g. sp.Match(XP [+max] , φ [−max] ). A ban on the existence of these constraints is proposed, and it is argued that this ban follows from the integration of Match constraints into the theory of Faithfulness.