OPTIMALITY THEORY: CONSTRAINT INTERACTION IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. xi + 289. $69.95 cloth, $39.95 paper.

This book is very similar to the manuscript (written by the same authors and bearing the same title) that has been circulating among phonologists since 1993. As mentioned by the authors in the preface, “those familiar with an earlier version of the text will not find new notions and notations here” (p. ix). For this reason, the 2004 publication date may seem anachronistic, as it does not reflect the state of Optimality Theory (OT) in 2004, but rather in 1993. The most notable difference between the two versions of this text is the disappearance of two sections (on variable rules and stochastic grammars and on declarative phonology) that were to be added in the manuscript form.