Input-Output Mismatches in Optimality Theory

Abstract

Bidirectional Optimality Theory allows us to see a wide range of problems which would previously have been considered unrelated from a new perspective, the perspective of asymmetric relationships between input and output. For interpretation, the input is a form and the output a meaning, and for production the input is a meaning and the output is a form. A mismatch is any case where there is no isomorphism between the space of meanings and the space of forms, say because one form has no meaning, or multiple meanings, or because a meaning is inexpressible, or may be expressed in multiple ways.