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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2005
OPTIMALITY THEORY IN PHONOLOGY: A READER. John J. McCarthy (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. xvi + 603. $79.95 cloth, $44.95 paper.
Optimality Theory in phonology is a textbook for an advanced-level phonology course that contains excerpts from 33 important articles and manuscripts on Optimality Theory (OT). For each chapter, McCarthy adds brief introductory notes and a list of study and research questions. The introductory notes provide background information and short remarks on the significance of the selected works. The study and research questions help readers to understand the material, and some questions are challenging enough to lead to interesting topics for research. Given the rapid development of OT in the past decade, it is not an easy task to compile such a reader. Overall, McCarthy makes excellent selections, and this book would be a useful textbook for many phonology classes. This text would also be appropriate for independent study, but those who are not familiar with OT may want to read Kager's (1999) introductory textbook before reading this volume. For an in-depth survey and overview of OT and an extensive list of references, the reader is referred to McCarthy (2002).