tableau (n.), plural tableaux (n.)

A term used in OPTIMALITY THEORY for a table of rows and columns used to demonstrate the EVALUATOR process. The top leftmost cell contains the INPUT REPRESENTATION to which CANDIDATE forms are being related. The relevant candidates are listed beneath this, with the optimal candidate indicated by a hand symbol . The relevant CONSTRAINTS are listed across the top of the table, the higher RANKINGS being shown from highest on the left to lowest on the right. Solid lines between constraints indicate crucial rankings; broken lines indicate non-crucial rankings. Asterisks show constraint VIOLATIONS, with an exclamation mark showing a violation which completely eliminates a candidate. A shaded area indicates a constraint that has become irrelevant because of the violation of a higher-ranked constraint. In the following tableau, taken from a 1997 introductory account by Diana Archangeli, a Yawelmani input form /xat-en/ ‘will eat’ is shown with four possible candidates. The optimal candidate is /xa.ten/ as its only violation is the lowest-ranked constraint, NOCODA. A series of related tableaux, each presenting the role of an individual input, can be combined into a single tableau des tableaux. In the analysis of SYNTAX, the mechanism of a subtableau presents a partial structuring of the syntactic input.