Determining where words begin and end can be a vexing task; one which
requires knowledge of the phonological and morphosyntactic structure of a
language. Studies on the phonological word is a compilation of articles which grew
from a conference on the phonological word held in Berlin in 1997. There are
nine papers, the first being a useful overview of the state of the art with respect
to the phonological word. The remaining articles provide detailed studies from
a diverse set of language families, including Salishan (Beck), Bantu (Downing),
Indo-European (Booij, Hall, Raffelsiefen, Vigário), Algonquian (Russell),
Siouan (Russell), as well as from Israeli Sign Language (Sandler). Each study
provides detailed argumentation and makes more than a few points of interest
regarding issues surrounding the phonological word. The volume provides
many valuable contributions of interest to both theoretically and empirically
inclined phonologists and morphologists.
A thorough coverage of each contribution would lead well beyond the scope
of this review. Instead, following the overview, a central theoretical and
empirical point from each article will be provided. This is followed by a brief
discussion of some of the general and recurrent themes of the studies presented
in the book.