In this course, we will examine the concepts of likelihood and well-formedness in the context of phonology. We study what it means to decide whether logically possible phonological inventories/forms/alternations are well-formed or likely according to a particular phonological grammar. We ask

1. Is well-formedness the same thing as likelihood in phonology?
2. On what basis is well-formedness and likelihood determined?
3. What universal principles govern well-formedness and likelihood in phonology?
4. How can phonological well-formedness and likelihood be learned from data?
5. How can we quantitatively and rigorously answer these questions?

In this course, we also learn to use a variety of open-source tools to help answer these questions.