Local blocking and minimal violation

Eric Baković, University of California, San Diego

Abstract

The Elsewhere Condition (Kiparsky 1973, 1982) blocks a rule B from applying when a more specific rule A has applied. Attested cases of EC-blocking are local: B is blocked from applying only to the specific elements within a form to which A has applied, as opposed to being globally blocked from applying to all elements in a form only some of which A has applied to. This locality follows from the minimal violation property of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993).