This volume seeks to bring together two separate enterprises, typology and
phonology, which have often gone their separate ways, even when apparently
addressing each other. Although there has always been phonology in the many
approaches to typology, there has always been far less of it than there has been
of morphology and syntax. Particularly in recent times, during which phonolog-
ical theory has flourished in many colours, the phonology in typological circles
has centered either around segment inventories and basic phonotactics or limited
itself to crudely categorising labels such as “syllable- vs. stress-timed languages”,
something which would barely pass muster with phonological theorists, whose
concerns have been “deeper” and usually more formal. On the other hand, despite
the numerous and diverse languages that would typically inform phonological
theorising, typological questions as such were rarely of major consequence, if
raised at all.