ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines the theoretical assumptions, and provides a summary of its principal claims. It argues that the mora is a prosodic constituent, and furthermore, that its presence in subsyllabic structure is a necessary prerequisite for its prosodicity. The book discusses certain phonological phenomena in Bulgarian, in particular the liquid epenthesis, which call for an early level in the lexical phonology with only moras but no syllables present. It explores further consequences of the prosodic status of the mora, pertaining to various prosodically driven types of behavior such as stress assignment and extrametricality, as well as to the general properties of weight phenomena. The book shows that in some cases people need the presence of moras while explicitly requiring the absence of syllables, which crucially argues for positing moras not only as subsyllabic constituents but also as prosodic units.
