Dissertation - Michael Becker

(157)/aÙ + 1/ IDENT(voice) σ1 *VÙV ONSETa. ☞ aÙ-1 * *b. aÃ-1 *! *When the winner and the loser in (157) are made into a winner-loser pair, as in (158),the number of violation marks in each column is compared (Prince 2002). A “winnerfavoring”constraint, or a constraint that assigns more violation marks to the loser than tothe winner, assigns a W to the pair. Similarly, a “loser-favoring” constraint is one thatassigns more violations to the winner than it does to the loser, and this is marked by an L.A constraint that assigns the same number of violations to the winner and to the loser, likeONSET in this example, leaves an empty cell in (158).(158)IDENT(voice) σ1 *VÙV ONSETa. aÙ-1 ≻ aÃ-1 W LOnce the Support is ready, even with just one winner-loser pair, as in (158), RCD canrun on it. RCD produces a stratified hierarchy of the constraints by finding constraintsthat have at least one W and no L’s in their column, and “installing” them. Installingconstraints means that they are added to the constraint hierarchy below any previouslyinstalled constraints, and any winner-loser pairs they assign W’s to are removed fromthe Support.RCD is done when the Support is emptied out, and any constraints thatwere left over are installed at the bottom of the hierarchy. In (158), RCD first identifiesIDENT(voice) σ1 as a constraint that has at least one W and no L’s in its column, and installsit. This removes the single winner-loser pair in the Support, so RCD can finish by installing163