Abstract This paper reevaluates Optimal Paradigms (OP), an extension to Optimality Theory proposed by McCarthy (2005). In OP, candidates are full inflectional paradigms and faithfulness constraints can require uniformity between all members within a paradigm. McCarthy (2005) proposed that OP can replace the assumption that prosodic templates are grammatical entities and other phonological mechanisms, which he regards as stipulations. One of the case studies used in McCarthy (2005) to showcase OP comes from Moroccan Arabic, where a noun-verb asymmetry in the distribution of schwa is claimed to be predicted by paradigmatic constraints as a means to achieve uniformity within an inflectional paradigm. We reevaluate this proposal using new fieldwork data from Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic, an endangered variety of Arabic that is closely related to Moroccan. We show that if adjectives are added to the picture, OP can no longer predict the distribution of schwa in the different categories. The conclusion is that OP cannot replace the mechanisms it was supposed to replace, and is therefore a redundant complication to phonological theory.
Marco et al. (Thu,) studied this question.