Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader is a collection of readings on this important new theory by leading figures in the field, including a lengthy excerpt from Prince and Smolensky's never-before-published Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar.

• Compiles the most important readings about Optimality Theory in phonology from some of the most prominent researchers in the field.
• Contains 33 excerpts spanning a range of topics in phonology and including many never-before-published papers.
• Includes a lengthy excerpt from Prince and Smolensky’s foundational 1993 manuscript Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar.
• Includes introductory notes and study/research questions for each chapter.

John J. McCarthy is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His widely cited but unpublished manuscript “Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction” (with Alan Prince, 1993) has been an important factor in the dissemination of Optimality Theory.He is also the author of Formal Problems in Semitic Phonology and Morphology (1985) and A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory (2002).