This volume is a representative selection of current methods of metrical-rhythmical analysis. Leading experts in the field present the latest state of the art in metrical theory, including Generative Metrics, the Russian quantitative-statistical approach, Optimality Theory, and Cognitive Metrics.

The book covers the major issues in the generative analysis of vowel harmony and vowel harmony typology. It offers an economical account of the most prominent features of vowel harmony systems within the framework of optimality theory, extending the notion of correspondence to the syntagmatic dimension. The book contains a typological overview of vowel harmony patterns, an introduction to the basics of optimality theory including some of its most recent extensions and detailed studies of harmony systems in 10 languages from a variety of language families.

The articles collected in this volume provide an overview of the status of derivational theory within one of the most popular frameworks in present-day phonology, Optimality Theory. According to Anderson (1985), the history of phonology in the twentieth century can be seen as a sequence of periods in which the emphasis is on the structure of phonological representations, alternating with periods in which the emphasis is on phonological derivations.