An approach to grammatical theory
developed by Alan Prince of
Rutgers University, Paul Smolensky of
Johns Hopkins, and John
McCarthy of
UMass.
In
Optimality Theory, the calculation of grammatical
well-formedness is accomplished by the optimization of a set of constraints on structure and on input-output
disparity, instead of through serial application of rules
subject and filtering constraints. The constraints of Optimality
Theory are considered to be universal to all human languages, with
conflicts between them being adjudicated by prioritization or
ranking, Optimality Theory presents a grammatical
architecture rather than an approach to a particular
subdomain and so has consequences for many areas of linguistic
and psycholinguistic analysis.