Applications Of Optimality Theory To Syllable Adaptation In Standard Chinese Transliteration From English

This thesis suggests another perspective-an optimality Theory perspective to view syllable adaptation in Standard Chinese Transliteration from English.Optimal Theory,often shortened as OT,was formulated by Prince and Smolensky(1993).The main idea of this theory is that all language are assumed to possess the same set of constraints, while constraints hierarchies are language specific and constraints can be violate;a surface form is considered to be the most harmonic or optimal in the sense that it minimally violates or best satisfies a set of hierarchically ranked constraints with the other potential surface forms. syllable adaptation in Standard Chinese transliteration from English is a subject which has not been fully discussed in the present literatures.The study shows that syllable adaptation in Standard Chinese transliterations from English is the result of the interactions of constraints in the hierarchy.The study on the Standard Chinese syllable structure is central in the thesis.From the angle of analysis The Standard Chinese syllable structure are the basis for the constraint hierarchy to derive the grammatical surface forms;from the theoretical angle;there exists the question that non-linear representations of the syllable structure are compatible with the surface oriented constraints and the constraint hierarchy. Standard Chinese syllable structure has been analyzed in the thesis. (C)(G)V(C)is the syllable structure I adopt.The pre-nuclear glide is placed in the position of onset.Constant clusters are not allowed in the onset position,though consonant glide sequences are acceptable in Standard Chinese.~*COMPLEX is respected at the expense of violating the lower ranking constraint ~*[CG.Besides,Labial consonants must not be followed by another labial segment as the pre-nuclear glide:~*Lab-W Velars are not to be followed by a high front vowel ~*Velar-I.And the right edge of the syllable is to be aligned with the right edge of the lexical word:Align-R.In addition,the prosodic foot should be binary either on the syllable level or on the moral level:Ft-Bin.The thesis intend to solve these questions:(1)What are the motivations for the syllable adaptation?(2)In which position does the epenthesis occur?(3)How is the syllable adapted?The conclusions can be made in the following:The syllable adaptation is motivated by well-formedness requirements on the syllable, phonotactic requirements on the syllable and the prosodic well-formedness on the syllable.The site of the epenthesis is decided by the constraint schema:Ft-Bin>>DEP-IO>>Align-RThe way of syllable adaptation is epenthesis,replacement(feature change) and deletion。In this thesis that constraints are found and ranked by analyzing the syllable structure are crucial to the evaluation of the output candidate.It shows that in order to explain linguistic phenomena relevant constraints should be found and ranked.