Review of Historical Phonetic Change in terms of Optimality Theory: Great Vowel Shift

Abstract

The efficiency of optimality theory is being lately manipulated in the field of historical phonological and phonetic changes specifically Great Vowel Shift. The current study tries to review phonological changes of GVS through OT modeling and to find the connection point between adaptation and OT through constraints by the given theoretical studies introduced here as a review. It also sheds the light on accounts about the linguistic principles by which vowel shifts took place and available information about the process of diphthongization .And as a requirement, this paper tackles illustrations to important notions like constraints and correspondence theory.