The calculation of similarity is crucial for the application of the OCP in phonological processes. Depending on whether two segments are sufficiently similar in a language, OCP effects like antigemination, degemination, and dissimilation either apply or do not apply in a particular sequence. Computation of identity also plays an important role in determining co-occurrence restrictions in the lexicon. A number of studies have investigated the gradient nature of lexical restrictions in various languages and found that the strength of identity between the adjacent segments underlies this gradient pattern. This dissertation puts forward the proposal that the same notion of identity and the same grammar involved in the calculation of similarity in the lexicon is also involved post-lexically when determining whether the OCP applies in a particular context or not. Taking Telugu as a case study, I show that the same grammar that encodes markedness based on the strength of identity in the lexicon and explains the gradient pattern of co-occurrence restrictions in the lexicon in Telugu also explains the gradient pattern of elision seen in the antiantigemination process post-lexically in Telugu.

This dissertation also proposes that antiantigemination is not a counterexample to the universal principle of OCP, but is a process that follows from the application of the OCP, like the process of antigemination. Only in antiantigemination, the OCP at the non-local CVC level of adjacency is higher ranked than the OCP at the local CC level of adjacency. Whereas in antigemination, the OCP at the local CC level of adjacency is stronger than the OCP at the non-local CVC level of adjacency.

This dissertation also finds phonetic effects of antigemination, like vowel lengthening between identical consonants, in Telugu, in the same contexts where the opposite pattern of antiantigemination is found at boundaries. This is a manifestation of the OCP at the local level, which is consistent with the above proposal.

The theory of the OCP that provides a unified analysis of the gradient lexical restrictions, the antiantigemination process in the active phonology, and the phonetic effects of antigemination is a gestural OCP formulation in the Generalized OCP framework.