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Harmonic Grammar (HG) and Optimality Theory (OT) are closely related formal frameworks for the study of language. In both, the structure of a given language is determined by the relative strengths of a set of constraints. They differ in how these strengths are represented: as numerical weights (HG) or as ranks (OT). Weighted constraints have advantages for the construction of accounts of language learning and other cognitive processes, partly because they allow for the adaptation of connectionist and statistical models. HG has been little studied in generative linguistics, however, largely due to influential claims that weighted constraints make incorrect predictions about the typology of natural languages, predictions that are not shared by the more popular OT. This paper makes the case that HG is in fact a promising framework for typological research, and reviews and extends the existing arguments for weighted over ranked constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this article comments on some phonological issues concerning the Comparative Markedness theory and Optimality Theory in linguistics. The author argues against a theoretical approach in which all surface forms are generated by the grammar in the form of rules or constraints. It has been suggested that at least some observable sound patterns are not generated by the grammar. Rather, the alternations are memorized as less abstract forms and stored in the lexicon as such. In this approach, the distinction between grammar and lexicon basically amounts to a distinction between productive phonological processes and memorized lexical alternations, a not uncommon assumption in traditional generative phonology.