alignment (n.) (ALIGN)

A family of CONSTRAINTS in OPTIMALITY THEORY requiring that the DOMAIN of a FEATURE extends to the EDGE of a CONSTITUENT – either the right edge, or the left edge, or both. Alignment would be used to handle such cases as a language where a feature of NASALITY appears only at the left edge of a STEM or ROOT, or the right edge of a particular TONE coincides with the right edge of a SYLLABLE. Generalized alignment is a SCHEMA for constraints which aligns (or ANCHORS) elements in two STRINGS. In relation to MORPHOLOGY, for example, it handles the ORDER of morphemes, requiring that the edge of one constituent coincides with the edge of another, such as the right edge of a REDUPLICANT with the left edge of a BASE (i.e. thereby ensuring that the reduplicant comes before the base).