Cyclic vs. noncyclic constraint evaluation

MIT With the advent of constraint-based theories of phonology such as Prince & Smolensky's (1993) Optimality Theory (OT), whether-and if so how many-levels/cycles intervene between the underlying and phonetic representations has emerged as a significant issue. In this paper we raise the question in the context of metrical parsing. After reviewing the basic constraints proposed by Prince & Smolensky (1993), Green (1993), and McCarthy & Prince (1993b) for the analysis of standard trochaic systems in section 1, we turn in section 2 to the stress contours of Indonesian which have been argued by Cohn (1989, 1993) to require a two-stage metrification applying first to the stem and then to the stem plus suffixes. Clashing stresses that arise from metrifying in stages are removed at the surface by a clash deletion rule. We review in some detail the cyclic analysis of Indonesian proposed by Halle & Idsardi (1994) within the bracketed grid framework of metrical parsing. We proceed to show that if alignment constraints between morphological and prosodic structure are permitted, then an equally plausible noncyclic analysis of Indonesian is possible which avoids the intermediate representation. In section 3 we demonstrate that output-oriented constraint evaluation allows us to formalize the mysterious suspension of an otherwise general stress subordination found in Indonesian reduplication structures. In the final sections of the paper we show that unlike in Indonesian, the stress contours of certain constructions in Carib, Shanghai Chinese, and Polish do