This book deals with the relation between the feature content of segments and the prosodic structure headed by those segments. It also presents several important contributions to the framework of Optimality Theory. Apart from this, the volume will make available many new data to phonologists working in other frameworks.Contents:IntroductionThe Headedness of syllables - Theoretical background - Data - Organisation of the bookVowel quality and rhyme structure in DutchIntroduction - The Dutch vowel system - Tenseness versus length: The case of Dutch - A theory based on the feature lax - [lax] and syllable structure in vowel harmony - Some more arguments for the length of A-vowels - Richness of the base - Conclusion - Appendix: Historical overviewTilburg Dutch and Standard Dutch vowel lengthDetails in the Standard Dutch vowel system - A dialect with real length: Tilburg Dutch - Derivation of the Dutch vowel systemDerived schwa in DutchIntroduction - Properties of r-schwa - Properties of e-schwa - Summary and conclusionDutch U-schwaIntroduction - Properties of u-schwa - Previous analyses of u-schwa - Remaining problems - Conclusion - Table of propertiesSchwa in French and NorwegianIntroduction - French - Norwegian - ConclusionA vowel-glide alternation in Rotterdam DutchIntroduction - The second person clitic - The diminutive suffix - Sievers's Law - Other issues - ConclusionThe projection constraint familyIntroduction - Projection and weakness - The foot level - The N level - The rhyme - Nuclear level - Features - Constraints conflicting with projection and weakness - ConclusionAppendicesConstraints and families of constraintsProsodic well-formedness - Autosegmental representations - Feature co-occurrence and licensing - Parsing - Constraints against unnecessary structure - Ad hoc constraintArguments for rankingTopology of the Dutch lexicon - Topology of the Dutch post-lexical phonologyRanking schemesTopology of the Standard Dutch lexicon - Topology of the Standard Dutch post-lexical phonology - Topology of the French phonology - Topology of the Rotterdam Dutch phonologyReferencesLanguage IndexSubject Index