Optimaalsusteooria. Kuidas eesti keeles klusiilid nõrgenesid ja kadusid
Optimality theory. The Weakening and Loss of Estonian Stops

Summary/Abstract: First, the article provides a survey of the principles of the optimality theory and their application in the description and explanation of language change. There follows a detailed discussion on the possible ways to describe the weakening and loss of stops in Estonian language history. First, weakening is known to have affected the stops following an unstressed, i.e. even syllable. Later, some of the weakened stops disappeared, whereas some others underwent a re-strengthening process. As is generally accepted, the loss of stops affected the words with a heavy first syllable as well as those words with a light first syllable, where the third (and final) syllable was also light. Supposedly that sound change was the result of a chain of minimal transformations. At that, the minimal transformations must have occurred both in the hierarchy of constraints and in the lexicon. It is demonstrated how the weakening and loss of stops is related to changes in the stress system. One of such changes was a rise in the prominence of secondary stress, first suspected by A. Eek and T. Help (1984), which is described here by means of prominence scales. This was followed by acceptability of sequences consisting of two stressed syllables, and avoidance of HL feet. The loss of stops may as well have played an important role in the development of the best-known peculiarity of Estonian – quantity alternation.

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