Underspecification and contextual faithfulness in analysing opacity with OT and rule-based serialism

Abstract

This paper discusses how the new analysis of self-destructive feeding (SDF) sheds light on the competition between rule-based serialism and OT. It was shown by Wang (2025) that SDF could be reduced to allomorph optimisation with appropriate constraints in Parallel OT, suggesting that OT may not be outperformed by rule-based serialism in the respect of analysing certain overapplication opacity. This paper proposes that rule-based serialism is still better insofar that the nature of rule-based phonology requires fewer analytical tools in its theoretical framework.