The Obligatory Contour Principle: Its Scope, Its Effects, and Its Role in Linguistic Theory

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24320087
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Ibaraki University
• Principal Investigator: Okazaki Masao 茨城大学, 人文学部, 教授 (30233315)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TABATA TOSHIYUKI 千葉大学, 言語教育センター, 教授 (00135237) ; TANAKA SHIN-ICHI 東京大学, 総合文化研究科, 教授 (40262919) ; UEDA ISAO 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科, 教授 (50176583) ; TOKIZAKI HISAO 札幌大学, 地域共創学群, 教授 (20211394) ; SASAKI KAN 札幌学院大学, 経営学部, 教授 (80312784) ; HARAGUCHI SHOSUKE 明海大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (50101316)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 必異原理 / 音韻現象 / 統語現象 / 意味現象 / 最適性理論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project aims at reconsidering the Obligatory Contour Principle (henceforth, OCP), which was proposed to grasp the distribution of tones in African languages and has developled into a general principle in phonology, in the context of the current development of phonological theories and at making empirical and theoretical contributions to phonological studies. On the empirical side, the OCP is shown to be operative in a wide range of facts in phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse, which have not been analyzed as OCP effects. On the theoretical side, the notion of turbidity is introduced into the Optimality-Theoretic phonologcial representation. The introduction of turbid representation enables us to provide better solutions to opacity puzzles in phonology and to clarify the role of the OCP in Optimality Theory.

Free Research Field

英語学