My current favourite subject is showing (by computer simulations) the way the typologies from the world’s languages are emergent instead of innate or synchronically functionalist.

For instance, markedness is definitely an emergent property that follows from frequency variations within the learner’s input (and never from innate markedness constraints or from synchronically functionalist faithfulness rankings), and licensing by cue emerges from variations in auditory cue reliability within the learner’s input (and never from innate specific-over-general faithfulness rankings or from synchronically listener-oriented faithfulness rankings):

Emergent ranking of faithfulness explains markedness and licensing by cue.
Rutgers Optimality Archive954. 30 pages.
Earlier version: Handout 14th Manchester Phonology Meeting, 2006/05/28.

As the second example, auditory dispersion in inventories of phonemes emerges from the truth that learners use within production exactly the same constraint rankings which have enhanced their comprehension (and never from innate markedness constraints or synchronically functionalist dispersion constraints). The next two papers would be the one- and 2-dimensional cases, correspondingly:

The emergence of auditory contrast.
Presentation GLOW 30, Troms. 24 slides.

When it comes to emergence of groups and constraints themselves, that’s discussed for Optimality Theory in addition to neural systems:

Paul Boersma, Titia Benders Klaas Seinhorst :
Neural systems for phonology and phonetics.
Manuscript, College of Amsterdam.

Paul Boersma, Paola Escudero Rachel Hayes :
Learning abstract phonological from auditory phonetic groups: A built-in model for that purchase of language-specific seem groups.

Proceedings from the 15th Worldwide Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Barcelona, 3–9 August 2003, pp. 1013–1016 (= Rutgers Optimality Archive585 ).

Functional phonology: Formalizing the interactions between articulatory and perceptual drives.
Ph.D. dissertation, College of Amsterdam, 504 pages.
A hardcopy edition can be obtained in the author free of charge!
For additional detail on separate chapters, and scripts, see Functional Phonology (1998).

Such simulations have the ability to trace languages within the generations (for additional, see seem change ):

Paul Boersma Joe Pater :
Constructing constraints from language data: the situation of Canadian British diphthongs.
Handout NELS 38, Ottawa. 18 pages.

The chances of eternal optimization in Optimality Theory.
In D. Eric Holt (erectile dysfunction.): Optimality Theory and language change. 31–65. Dordrecht: Kluwer. [ Abstract ]
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive429. 2000/12/13.

The above mentioned papers (if more youthful than 2005) depend heavily around the framework of Parallel Bidirectional Phonology and Phonetics. i.e. on the concept that you apply the same constraint ranking like a listener so that as a speaker as well as on the parallel multi-level look at your phonology as well as your phonetics. Here’s a lot of that subject:

A programme for bidirectional phonology and phonetics as well as their acquisition and evolution.
In Anton Benz Jason Mattausch (eds.), Bidirectional Optimality Theory. 33–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Earlier version: Handout LOT Summerschool, June 2006, and Jadertina Summerschool (Rutgers Optimality Archive868 ), 2006/09/12.

Paul Boersma Silke Hamann :
Loanword adaptation as first-language phonological perception.
In Andrea Calabrese W. Leo Wetzels (eds.), Loanword phonology . 11–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive975. 2008/06/15.
Earlier version: Presentation OCP 4, Rhodes, 2007/01/20.

Cue constraints as well as their interactions in phonological perception and production.
In Paul Boersma Silke Hamann (eds.): Phonology in perception . 55–110. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive944. 2007/11/11.

Some listener-oriented accounts of h-aspir in French.
Lingua117. 1989-2054 .
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive730. 2005/04/13.

The evolution of phonotactic distributions within the lexicon.
Presentation Workshop on Variation, Gradience and Frequency in Phonology, Stanford. 32 slides.

A constraint-based explanation from the McGurk effect.
In Roland Noske and Bert Botma (eds.) Phonological Architecture: Empirical, Theoretical and Conceptual Issues. Berlin/New You are able to: Mouton de Gruyter. 299–312.
Preprint: 2011/07/03, 11 pages .
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive869. 2006/09/15.

Prototypicality judgments as inverted perception.
In Gisbert Fanselow, Caroline Fry, Matthias Schlesewsky Ralf Vogel (eds.): Gradience in Grammar. 167–184. Oxford: Oxford College Press. [ Abstract ]
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive742. 2005/05/17.

The majority of the papers with simulations make use of the Gradual Learning Formula for Optimality Theory, that was defined within the following two papers:

Paul Boersma Bruce Hayes :
Empirical tests from the Gradual Learning Formula.
Linguistic Inquiry32. 45–86. [ ]
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive348. 1999/09/29.
Additional material: the GLA web site.

The way we learn variation, optionality, and probability.
IFA Proceedings21. 43–58.
Additional material: Simulation script.
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive221. 1997/10/12 (incorrect!).
Also made an appearance as: chapter 15 of Functional Phonology (1998).

Nowadays we routinely check the way the simulations behave when we use Harmonic Grammar rather of Optimality Theory. The next paper describes an evidence from the learning formula:

Paul Boersma Joe Pater :
Convergence qualities of the gradual learning formula for Harmonic Grammar.
To look inside a book edited by John McCarthy and Joe Pater.
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive970. 2008/05/21 .
Additional material: the GLA web site.

Writings by subject :

• Optimality-Theoretic modelling of bidirectional phonology and phonetics as well as their acquisition and evolution (1989–2013):
  • seem change (1989–2013), partially with Silke Hamann and Joe Pater
  • Gradual Learning Formula along with other OT and HG learning algorithms (1997–2013), partially with Bruce Hayes, Clara Levelt and Joe Pater
  • linguistic processes:
    • prelexical perception:
      • categorization (1997–2008), partially with Paola Escudero and Rachel Hayes
      • OCP (1998–2003)
    • lexicon (word recognition, faithfulness ranking, lexical selection) (1999–2009), partially with Silke Hamann and Diana Apoussidou
    • production:
      • framework listener-oriented production (control loops, probabilistic faithfulness) (1997–2005), partially with Silke Hamann
      • framework Phonology and Phonetics in Parallel (2005–2011), partially with Silke Hamann and Diana Apoussidou
  • representations:
    • features with Kateina Chldkov, Titia Benders and Mirjam de Jonge (2011–2015)
  • paralinguistic tasks:
    • grammaticality and prototypicality (2001–2008), partially with Bruce Hayes and Silke Hamann
  • applications:
    • loanword adaptation (2000–2009), partially with Silke Hamann
    • Poverty from the Base (1997–2009)
    • nasal harmony (1998–2003)
    • metrical phonology with Diana Apoussidou (2003–2004)
• Experimental phonetics and phonology (1993–2014):
  • writings around the Praat program (1993–2014), partially with David Weenink and Ton Wempe
  • methodology (2005–2013), partially with Paola Escudero, Titia Benders and Kateina Chldkov
  • distributional learning with Karin Wanrooij (2013–2015): continuous distributions. two-month-old infants. adults. confounds
  • the undersampling hypothesis with Kateina Chldkov (2009)
  • Portuguese and Spanish vowels (2009–2011), with Paola Escudero, Andria Rauber, Kateina Chldkov and Ricardo Bion
  • Croatian folk singing with Gordana Kovacic (2003–2006)
• Limburgian tone (2002–2013):
  • Franconian tonogenesis (2002–2013)
  • synchronic analysis of Roermond (2011)
  • pitch accent versus tone with Bjrn Khnlein (2008)