goedemans

A volume published in 1996 (Stress Patterns of the World: part 1) is the antecedent to this second volume on the subject. The earlier work offered theoretical and practical information on a database called StressTyp. For this volume contributors were asked to discuss the stress/accent systems of "as many languages in `their' part of the world as they could lay their hands on"--(from the preface); and they were encouraged to use StressTyp and then go beyond it, laying the groundwork for future extension of the database. After a chapter on word accent--terms, typologies, and theories, contributions in the first section survey stress systems and accents by region, including Australian Aboriginal, Austronesian, Papuan, Native North American, middle American, South American, African, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern languages. The second section consists of StressTyp data for each region's languages. A version of StressTyp is available on the web with a simple search engine; the full database is available by writing to the editors. The three editors (who are also contributors) are affiliated with linguistics departments as follows: Harry van der Hulst (U. of Connecticut); Rob Goedemans and Ellen van Zanten (Leiden U.). Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)