Research Interests

• Optimality Theory: its structure and applications
• Phonology and prosodic morphology
• Cognitive science of language, algorithmic learning
• Computational environments for linguistic theory

CV (pdf) 

Downloadable Work

Click on title for download or download info. PDF is the typical format. 

• Prince, Alan, Bruce Tesar and Nazarré Merchant. 2015. OTWorkplace Installer Package.
  OTWorkplace is a Excel-based environment for OT research which calculates, manipulates, and displays the essential objects of the theory.
  The Installer Package contains everything needed to support the program, including Graphviz, Ruby, RUBOT and OTWorkplace itself.
  Scripted in VBA and Ruby. Runs on Windows. 75MB zip file. Unzip and follow the README directions.
      •CT•RCD•HBFinder•DeDupe•FRed•SKB• MIB•Support•WhoWins•FactorialTypology•Hasse•And more!
  Latest updates and documentation posted at the OTWorkplace site.
• Alber, Birgit, Natalie DelBusso, and Alan Prince. 2015. From Intensional Properties to Universal Support. ROA-1235.
• Brasoveanu, Adrian, and Alan Prince. 2011. Ranking & Necessity: the Fusional Reduction Algorithm. NLLT 29:1, 3-70.
• Prince, Alan. 2010. Counting Parses. 16pp. ROA-1118.
  An intellectual lark! --Anon.
• Prince, Alan. 2009. RCD - The Movie. 
  Excel 2003 format. ROA-1057.i
  Excel 2007 format. ROA-1057.ii.
  Mac Excel 2004 format. ROA-1057.iii
• Prince, Alan. 2007. Let the decimal system do it for you: a ridiculously simple utility function for OT. 13pp. ROA-943
• Prince, Alan. 2007. The Pursuit of Theory. 25pp.
  In Paul de Lacy, ed., Cambridge Handbook of Phonology.
• Prince, Alan. 2006. No More than Necessary: beyond the 'four rules', and a bug report. 16pp. ROA-882.
• Prince, Alan. 2006. Implication & Impossibility in Grammatical Systems: What it is & How to find it. 61pp. ROA-880.
• Prince, Alan. 2006. Harmony at Base Omega: Utility Functions for OT. 8pp. ROA-798.
• Brasoveanu, Adrian, and Alan Prince. 2005. Ranking &Necessity. Part I. 69pp. ROA-794.
• Prince, Alan, and Paul Smolensky. 2004. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative grammar.
  If you follow the link, you'll find you have to pay for this one. If not so inclined, try ROA-537.
• Tesar, Bruce, and Alan Prince. 2003. Using phonotactics to learn phonological alternations. 
  Proceedings of the Thirty-Ninth Conference of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Vol. II: The Panels. ROA-620.
• Tesar, Bruce, and John Alderete, Graham Horwood, Nazarré Merchant, Koichi Nishitani, and Alan Prince. 2003. Surgery in language learning.
  Proceedings of the Twenty-Second West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. 477-490. ROA-619.
• Prince, Alan. 2002. Arguing Optimality. In Coetzee, Andries, Angela Carpenter and Paul de Lacy (eds). Papers in Optimality Theory II. GLSA, UMass.Amherst. ROA-536.
• Prince, Alan. 2002. Anything Goes. 25pp.
  In A New Century of Phonology and Phonological Theory, ed. T. Honma, M. Okazaki, T.Tabata, & S. Tanaka. Kaitakusha:Tokyo. 66-90. ROA-536. 20pp. 216K/pdf.
• Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky. 2002. Optimality Theory in Phonology. 17pp.
  Article for Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics.
• Samek-Lodovici, Vieri and Alan Prince. 2002. Fundamental Properties of Harmonic Bounding. 35pp. RuCCS-TR-71. Updated as ROA-785.
• Prince, Alan. 2002. Entailed Ranking Arguments. ROA-500. 117pp.
• Prince, Alan. 2000. Comparative Tableaux. 20pp. ROA-376.
  Revised as Arguing Optimality. ROA-562.
• Samek-Lodovici, Vieri and Alan Prince. 1999. Optima. 58pp. ROA-363
• Prince, Alan and Bruce Tesar. 1999. Learning Phonotactic Distributions. 32pp.ROA-353.
• Prince, Alan. 1998. Two Lectures on Optimality Theory.
  Talks given at the 1998 Phonology Forum, Kobe.
• McCarthy, John and Alan Prince. 1997/99. Faithfulness and Identity in Prosodic Morphology. 65pp. ROA-216.
  In The Morphology- Prosody Interface, (1999) eds. Harry van der Hulst, René Kager, and Wim Zonneveld. pp. 218-309, Cambridge University Press.
• Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky. 1997. Optimality: From Neural Networks to Universal Grammar. Science 275, 1604-1610.
• Prince, Alan 1997. Elsewhere and Otherwise. Glot International 2:1, 23-24. 7pp. ROA-217.
• Prince, Alan & John McCarthy. 1996. Prosodic Morphology 1986. RuCCS-TR-32. Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. 100pp
• Prince, Alan. 1996. Gradient Ascent in a Linear Inhibitory Network. 13pp. RuCCS-TR-31, Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science.
• Pinker, Steven & Alan Prince. 1996. The nature of human concepts: evidence from an unusual source. Communication and Cognition, 29, 307-361.
• McCarthy, John & Alan Prince. 1995. Faithfulness and Reduplicative Identity. 137pp. ROA-60.
  In Jill Beckman, Suzanne Urbanczyk, Laura Walsh eds. UMOP-18: Papers in Optimality Theory.
• McCarthy, John & Alan Prince. 1994. The Emergence of the Unmarked. 47pp. ROA-13.
  In Mercè Gonzàlez, ed., NELS 24: Proceedings of [the 1993 meeting of] the Northeastern Linguistic Society, Vol. 2, 333-379. GLSA: Amherst, MA.
• Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky.1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. RuCCS-TR-2. 262pp. ROA-537.
• McCarthy,John & Alan Prince. 1993a. Prosodic Morphology: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction. RuCCS-TR-3. 196pp. ROA-482.
• McCarthy, John & Alan Prince. 1993b. Generalized Alignment. 69pp. ROA-7.
  In Geert Booij and Jaap van Marle, eds,Yearbook of Morphology 1993, 79-153. Kluwer: Boston.
• Prince, Alan. 1993. In defense of the number i: Anatomy of a linear dynamical model of linguistic generalizations. 100pp. RuCCS TR-1.
• Prince, Alan. 1990. Quantitative Consequences of Rhythmic Organization. 34pp.
  In CLS 26-II: Papers from the Parasession on the Syllable in Phonetics and Phonology, ed. Karen Deaton, Manuela Noske, and Michael Ziolkowski, 355-398. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.
• Prince, Alan. 1989. Metrical Forms.
  In Kiparsky & Youmans, eds. Rhythm and Meter, 45-80.
  Some copy-editor damage to the Urtext has been repaired, v. sec. 3.2.
• Pinker, Steven, and Alan Prince. 1988. On language and connectionism: Analysis of a Parallel Distributed model of of language acquisition. 121pp.
  Cognition 28, 73-193.
• Liberman, Mark and Alan Prince. 1977. On Stress and Linguistic Rhythm. LI 8.2, 249-336.
• Prince, Alan. 1976a. Applying Stress.
  The metrical theory of word-stress in ovo.
• Prince, Alan. 1976b. Stress (section 6).
  Revised version of part of the above, using moras and syllables.
• Prince, Alan, and Ian Carruthers. 1968. An Interview with John Barth. Prism. Montreal.
  Originally published under my name only. Ian Carruthers accompanied me, joined in the interviewing, and generally improved the experience.
  A few decades in academia have sharpened my grasp of co-authorship; scissors and tape have done the rest.
• Alexander, B.H., Chung-Ja Choi, A.S.Prince, and M.H. Aldridge. 1967. New Carbamates and Related Compounds.
  Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data 12:1, 146-149.

Some Talks

Click on title for download of handouts in PDF.

• The Logic of Optimality Theory. SWOT, April 2003.
• Grammar as Choice: conflict, concord, and optimality. (PPT). UCL Center for Human Communication, April 2005.
• LSA Linguistic Institute at Cornell, 23 June- 2 July, 1997.
  1. I. Endogenous Constraints on Optimality Theory
  2. II. Stringency and Anti-Paninian Hierarchies
  3. III. Harmonic Completeness, AP order; Chain Shifts
  4. IV. TETU, GTH,and BC
     • Paninian Relations. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, October 31, 1997.
     • [Son of] Paninian Relations. University of Marburg, March 17, 1998.
     • The Special and The General. Penn Linguistics Colloquium, February 26, 2000.
     • Invariance under Re-Ranking. WCCFL XX, held at USC, February 24, 2001.