Clàudia Pons-Moll (2005). Velles i noves perspectives en el tractament de l\'opacitat fonològica

The purpose of this paper is to discuss one of the most intriguing and controversial issues in phonological theory: phonological opacity. Phonological opacity refers to those cases where a linguistic generalization is not obeyed by certain surface forms and to those cases where certain surface forms obey a linguistic generalization, although the conditions that make it applicable are not visible. In the first case, it is said that a process underapplies whereas, in the latter, it is said that a process overapplies. In this paper, we exemplify how these kinds of opaque interactions have been dealt with within derivational models ofphonology —basically resorting to rule ordering—, as well as in declarative models of phonology, such as Optimality Theory (OT). We also illustrate how opacity has become an important challenge forstandard OT —mostly because of its parallel and global character— and how the model has refined its basic architecture in order to handle it.