Dr April McMahon has been Lecturer in Historical Linguistics and Phonology at the University of Cambridge since 1988. From March 2000 she will be Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Understanding Language Change (CUP, 1994) and Lexical Phonology and the History of English (CUP, forthcoming 2000), and has published articles and reviews in many journals. She has long-standing research interests in the relationship of phonological theory and sound change, and in interdisciplinary issues including connections between evolutionary theory, genetics and historical linguistics.

This formidable critique of Optimality Theory (OT) should be required reading for all graduate students in linguistics. Phonologists of every stripe - synchronic and diachronic, regardless of the theories in which they work - ignore it at their peril. Anyone with even a passing interest in linguistic theory would also be well advised to read it, because its implications reach well beyond phonology to involve current hypotheses about the nature and evolution of human language ... this volume should solidfy McMahon's reputation as one of the most insightful linguistic theorists currently writing.

• Chapter 1: Optimality Theory: The Basics ; Chapter 2: Optimality in a Complex World: Additions and Extensions ; Chapter 3: Constraints, Causation, and Change ; Chapter 4: Cognates and Comparisons: Natural Morphology and Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Biology ; Chapter 5: The Emergence of the Innate: Evolving Optimality ; Chapter 6: Optimality and Optimism: The Panglossian Paradigm

Dr April McMahon has been Lecturer in Historical Linguistics and Phonology at the University of Cambridge since 1988. From March 2000 she will be Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Understanding Language Change (CUP, 1994) and Lexical Phonology and the History of English (CUP, forthcoming 2000), and has published articles and reviews in many journals. She has long-standing research interests in the relationship of phonological theory and sound change, and in interdisciplinary issues including connections between evolutionary theory, genetics and historical linguistics.

This formidable critique of Optimality Theory (OT) should be required reading for all graduate students in linguistics. Phonologists of every stripe - synchronic and diachronic, regardless of the theories in which they work - ignore it at their peril. Anyone with even a passing interest in linguistic theory would also be well advised to read it, because its implications reach well beyond phonology to involve current hypotheses about the nature and evolution of human language ... this volume should solidfy McMahon's reputation as one of the most insightful linguistic theorists currently writing.

• Chapter 1: Optimality Theory: The Basics ; Chapter 2: Optimality in a Complex World: Additions and Extensions ; Chapter 3: Constraints, Causation, and Change ; Chapter 4: Cognates and Comparisons: Natural Morphology and Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Biology ; Chapter 5: The Emergence of the Innate: Evolving Optimality ; Chapter 6: Optimality and Optimism: The Panglossian Paradigm

Dr April McMahon has been Lecturer in Historical Linguistics and Phonology at the University of Cambridge since 1988. From March 2000 she will be Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Understanding Language Change (CUP, 1994) and Lexical Phonology and the History of English (CUP, forthcoming 2000), and has published articles and reviews in many journals. She has long-standing research interests in the relationship of phonological theory and sound change, and in interdisciplinary issues including connections between evolutionary theory, genetics and historical linguistics.

This formidable critique of Optimality Theory (OT) should be required reading for all graduate students in linguistics. Phonologists of every stripe - synchronic and diachronic, regardless of the theories in which they work - ignore it at their peril. Anyone with even a passing interest in linguistic theory would also be well advised to read it, because its implications reach well beyond phonology to involve current hypotheses about the nature and evolution of human language ... this volume should solidfy McMahon's reputation as one of the most insightful linguistic theorists currently writing.

• Chapter 1: Optimality Theory: The Basics ; Chapter 2: Optimality in a Complex World: Additions and Extensions ; Chapter 3: Constraints, Causation, and Change ; Chapter 4: Cognates and Comparisons: Natural Morphology and Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Biology ; Chapter 5: The Emergence of the Innate: Evolving Optimality ; Chapter 6: Optimality and Optimism: The Panglossian Paradigm