Tier

Definition
Tier is a level of representation where particular information is decoded.

Example
McCarthy (1981) has argued that the representation of the Arabic form katab 'write, perfect active' consists of three independent tiers: (a) a tier where the root ktb 'write' is represented, (b) a tier where the inflectional morpheme a is represented, and (c) a tier where the binyam I information CVCVC is decoded (= CV tier). Another term is plane.

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics