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Abstract: The aim of this article is to account for tense/aspect and mood based differential subject and object marking. We propose an analysis in terms of an optimization procedure between two general potentially conflicting constraints, the faithfulness constraint Identify, which requires the A and the P argument to be identified, either by case or by the context, and the markedness constraint Economy, which penalizes case marking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We will provide a bidirectional Optimality Theoretic approach for fluid differential case marking, in particular fluid differential subject marking. Our claim is that although there is no fixed meaning associated with any particular type of case, a correspondence constraint between volitional meaning and ergative case interacts with markedness constraints and this interaction may result in fluid differential case marking. Thus, fluid differential subject marking is analysed as the emergence of the correspondence between volitional meaning and ergative case in a bidirectional process of optimization. We will argue that this type of differential case marking cannot be adequately explained in unidirectional OT syntax. In a bidirectional perspective, however, fluid differential case marking can be analysed on the basis of the same set of ranked constraints that accounts for the general pattern of case marking. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aim of this introductory article is to provide a background to the articles contained in this special issue of Lingua that centers around variation in form, variation in meaning, and markedness. Theoretical and empirical considerations are brought together in this special issue in which the linguistic disciplines that are covered diverge. The different contributions deal with language processing, first language acquisition, language contact, functional-typology and generative morphology and syntax. Several papers in this special issue argue in favour of an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the data under discussion. This is not a coincidence, given that Optimality Theory is claimed to be a formal theory of markedness (cf. Gilbers and De Hoop, 1998, Lingua, 104, 1 for an introduction to OT). In Section 1, we present two hypotheses dealing with the relation between variation in form and variation in meaning. We discuss several dimensions along which markedness of forms and meanings can be measured in Section 2. In the final section we discuss the possibility that the concept of bidirectional optimization accounts for markedness as well as variation in form versus variation in meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]