Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2008
In the past few years a great deal of attention has been paid to the representation of suprasegmental phenomena in phonology, with the resulting development of a number of partly competing theories and models of suprasegmental representation – in particular, various versions of AUTOSEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY (see, for example, Goldsmith 1976; Halle & Vergnaud 1981; Clements & Keyser 1983) and METRICAL PHONOLOGY (Liberman & Prince 1977; Hayes 1980, 1982; Prince 1983; Giegerich 1985). Other frameworks have also been developed which allow for the representation of phenomena in this area, notably that of DEPENDENCY PHONOLOGY (Anderson & Jones 1974, 1977; Ewen 1980; Anderson 1984; Anderson & Ewen 1980, forthcoming).It has, moreover, become obvious that although these theories at first seemed very different, many of the differences are more apparent than real, so that in some respects the proposals are complementary rather than alternative - and in many areas it is clear that we are moving towards a situation where a single model can perhaps be developed from the various frameworks (cf. Leben 1982; Goldsmith this volume).