ARMASM to GNU-as

Hi,

I have 3 major doubts -


1 - regarding DCD and .word
Is the ".word" directive the exact GNU-as equivalent of "DCD" in ARMASM?
My doubt is regarding memory alignment on 4-byte boundaries; does .word
take care of alignment like DCD or will I have to use an explicit .align
directive.

2 - MAP and FIELD
what is the equivalent for MAP and FIELD directives for creating
datastructures in    GNU-as?

3 - .align ?
GNU as says that the instruction ".align 4" (for example) could advance
the location counter until it is a multiple of 4 OR until it is a
multiple of 16(2^4) depending on the target and executable format. What
is it for ARM-elf?

4 -    ldr r1, =|Image$$ZI$$Limit|
I can't make sense out of this statement; what is this ->
|Image$$ZI$$Limit| ?
How do I convert this statement to GNU-as?

Awaiting replies...(please.. :-))

Regards,
Sibin