Input-Output Relations in Phonology Coloured Containment Theory

This study defends Coloured Containment, a theory of the Optimality Theory generator function Gen which is based on Prince and Smolensky’s (1993) idea of Containment, rather than on Correspondence Theory, which has been a vastly more popular idea about the relationship between input and output forms in phonology. This is the first monograph, setting out principles of Coloured Containment, which are first and foremost the following two: 1. Containment. No element may be literally removed from the input form. The input is thus contained in every candidate form. 2. Consistency of Exponence. No changes in the exponence of a phonologically specified morpheme are permitted. In some sense, all theories of Gen/faithfulness have to assume these two principles. The proposal is to take them seriously; no extra apparatus will then be necessary to deal with the two main components of any Input-Output pair: insertion and deletion.