Dissertation - Michael Becker

(139) or (141), the choice of constraint to clone is inconsequential. When conflicts involveunequal numbers of W’s and L’s, as in (144), lexical trends are correctly identified only ifthe least populated column (i.e. the column with the minimal number of W’s and L’s) ischosen for cloning first.Choosing the least populated column guarantees that the minimal number of lexicalitems is listed with clones, which in turn guarantees that the learner makes the finestdistinctions that their Universal constraint set can express. 2Choosing the least populated column to clone is beneficial for identifying lexical trendseven when only one trend is involved. Consider the situation in (149), were C1 and C2make exactly opposite demands on winner1 and winner2, but C2 is neutral with respect towinner3.(149)C1C2a. winner1 ≻ loser1 W Lb. winner2 ≻ loser2 L Wc. winner3 ≻ loser3 WIf C1 is wrongly chosen for cloning, winner1 and winner3 will be listed with one cloneof C1, and winner2 will be listed with the other clone. The resulting grammar would beC1 winner1, winner3 ≫ C2 ≫ C1 winner2 , where winner1 and winner3 end up in the same “bin”,and thus wrongly skew the lexical trend in favor of winner1. The problem here is that onlywinner1 and winner2 are part of the minimal conflict. Winner3 is not a part of the conflict,2 This aspect of learning is analogous to the way the Minimal Generalization Learner (Albright & Hayes2002, 2003, 2006) starts with the finest generalization it can make, i.e. over single words, and then graduallyexpands the scope of generalization. In the learning method proposed here, there is only one level ofgranularity, which is dictated by the constraints in CON.154