Paradigm uniformity has a long tradition in pre-generative linguistics but until recently played a minor role in theoretical phonology. Optimality Theory has drawn renewed attention to paradigmatic effects, formalized by constraints comparing the surface pronunciation of morphologically related words. The ten chapters in this volume illustrate how a wide range of exceptions to regular phonological processes can be explained in this fashion. The chapters address such important theoretical questions as: do paradigms have a morphological base? If so, how is it defined? Why do paradigmatic effects hold for only certain subsets of words? In which areas of the grammar are paradigmatic effects likely to be found? The authors discuss new data from the synchronic grammars of a wide variety of unrelated languages, including: Modern Hebrew, Chimwiini and Jita (Bantu), Halkomelem (Salish), Hungarian, and Arabic.

Contributors: Professor Adam Albright, MIT; Professor Outi Bat-El, Tel-Aviv University; Professor Luigi Burzio, Johns Hopkins University; Professor Stuart Davis, Indiana University; Professor Laura J. Downing, ZAS, Berlin; Professor Michael Kenstowicz, MIT; Professor John McCarthy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Dr Renate Raffelsiefen, Technical University Berlin; Dr Peter Rebrus, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Dr Miklos Torkenczy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Dr Suzanne Urbanczyk, University of Victoria