ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to serve as a brief introduction to prosodic and metrical phonology. Prosodic and metrical structure, related to phonetics and the acoustic signal on one side and to syntax and semantic interpretation on the other, play a central role in the issues raised in this volume. Because of their relevance to so many areas of language, they have been investigated from many different points of view, including phonetics, intonation, stress-focus relations, discourse, psycholinguistics, and other perspectives. For reasons of space and coherence, the following overview is limited to prosodic and metrical structure as they pertain to phonology. I sketch some major results that have emerged in the context of research in phonological theory and the relation between syntax and phonology.
