This paper examines the substance and formal nature of the Coda
 Condition within OT, making use of the concept of Alignment. It is
 argued that CodaCond, rather than disallowing elements from the coda,
 must be construed as an alignment constraint requiring consonants to
 occupy the left periphery of syllables.  Besides possible
 ramifications regarding syllable contact and onset maximization, the
 paper shows that the definition of alignment must be separated from
 the constraint requiring prosodic units to have 'crisp' edges (i.e.,
 defined by exclusive linking).  The analysis of Lardil illustrates why
 double linking ('feature spreading'), rather than feature-insertion,
 is employed to fill in epenthetic structure: Since every articulator
 feature incurs a mark *Pl/Art, it is preferable to minimize place
 specifications by invoking the spreading option, instead of inserting
 new place features.



Junko Ito and Armin Mester

U.C. Santa Cruz