Classes 1 and 2 : introduction to constraint based Grammars December 14 and 15, SM
Phonological theory: rules and constraints; Classical Optimality Theory; Other variants of OT
Class 3: Varieties of Harmonic Grammar December 16, JP
An overview presentation of the models discussed in the course, contextualization in related research in generative linguistics and other branches of cognitive science
Classes 4 and 5: Categorical parallel HG, December 17, JP
Topics: Structure of a “classic” OT grammar, differences between ranked and weighted constraints, differences between weighted constraints and local conjunction, parallelism and globality in OT and HG, algorithms for typology calculation, perceptron convergence proof.
Case studies: Vowel harmony and stress typology
Software: OT-Help 1 (Becker, Pater and Potts 2008), Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2008)
Classes 6 and 7: Stochastic HG, December 18, JP
Topics: Maximum Entropy model of probabilistic grammar, Noisy HG, gradient well-formedness, batch and on-line learning algorithms, hidden structure learning, HG models of language processing
Case studies: Phonological and syntactic variation and gradient well-formedness
Software: Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2009), Phonotactic learning software (Hayes and Wilson 2008), Maxent grammar tool (Hayes and Wilson 2009).
Class 8: Serial HG, December 19, JP
Topics: Comparison of parallel vs. serial models, consequences of serialism for comparisons between ranked and weighted constraints, learning and typology calculation for serial models
Case studies: Syllabification and stress placement, syntactic derivations
Software: OT-Help 2 (Becker, Potts, Pratt, Staubs, McCarthy and Pater 2009)
Classes 9 and 10: Modeling human language acquisition in HG, December 20, JP
Topics: Gradual learning algorithms and human learning, initial states and biases, (over-) generalization, interaction between learners and generational (agent-based) learning