Word-level stress in English has been the topic of numerous studies over the past century. From The Sound Pattern of English (henceforth SPE; Chomsky & Halle Reference Chomsky and Halle1968) to Metrical Phonology (Liberman & Prince Reference Liberman and Prince1977; Hayes Reference Hayes1980; Halle & Vergnaud Reference Halle and Vergnaud1987) to Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky Reference Kiparsky, van der Hulst and Smith1982; Mohanan Reference Mohanan1982) to Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky [Reference Prince and Smolensky1993] 2004; Hammond Reference Hammond1999; Pater Reference Pater2000), a wide range of influential theoretical approaches have been proposed, disseminated and critiqued in the literature. The popularity of this topic can be attributed, at least in part, to its complexity: while regularities can be found in the language, the English lexicon presents several challenges to any phonologist attempting to account for its stress system. Given the extensive collection of existing studies, developing an entire volume dedicated to stress that offers new and relevant insights on the topic is not an easy task – especially considering how much has been said about English, arguably the most well-studied language of all. New Perspectives on English Word Stress takes on this challenge by emphasising the role of databases and corpora, exploring variation across different Englishes (Australian and Singaporean), and discussing often overlooked topics such as the role of orthographic information in stress assignment. The volume also presents relatively recent approaches to English stress, such as the Input Optimization framework (chapter 8; Hammond Reference Hammond2016) and Positional Function Theory (chapter 9; Yamada Reference Yamada2010).

Edited by Eiji Yamada, Anne Przewozny, Jean-Michel Fournier and Nicolas Ballier, the book consists of an introduction and nine chapters. In the introduction, the editors explain that the idea for the book originated at a conference held in France in 2015 whose theme was ‘Advances in the Phonology and Phonetics of Contemporary English’ (p. 1). The genesis of the project thus explains why 10 of the 12 researchers involved in the book are phonologists in France; it also explains why a number of chapters focus on a particular school of thought (briefly discussed below) that may be new to many readers in North America, for example.

Chapter 1, ‘On the treatment of English word stress within the generative tradition: history, concepts and debates’, by Jacques Durand and Eiji Yamada, presents a chronological review of the key traditional approaches to English stress. Consequently, it offers a detailed perspective on the evolution of approaches to this specific topic. The authors’ discussion of pre-SPE analyses is especially welcome, as it helps the reader understand the historical context that led Chomsky & Halle (Reference Chomsky and Halle1968) to develop the SPE framework, for example, Kingdon’s (Reference Kingdon1958) anticipation of the nuclear stress rule as well as the description of stress-neutral and stress-shifting suffixes in English. It is equally helpful that the treatment of stress under SPE is concisely and clearly reviewed, given that introductory courses in phonology often discuss this framework only in the context of segmental processes. More specifically, the reader will benefit from a succinct review of the Main Stress Rule from SPE, and from a clear comparison of frameworks up until constraint-based approaches in the 1990s.

In addition to reviewing the history of generative approaches to English stress, the book presents certain chapters whose analyses follow the Guierrian School, a lesser-known framework developed in the 1970s by Guierre (Reference Guierre1979) (e.g., chapters 2, 4, 5 and 6). Even though ‘its scope was strictly limited to English stress and pronunciation, with no linguistic theoretical ambitions’ (p. 53), one key element of the framework would later play a central role in the field of phonology: the use of large datasets to determine how patterns can be understood and explained by researchers. Indeed, multiple chapters in the book (not only those employing a Guierrian approach; e.g., chapter 8) make use of datasets to map statistical patterns in the English lexicon, regardless of which theoretical framework guides the analysis.

Another key element in the Guierrian approach involves the role of orthographic information, which is typically ignored in more traditional frameworks, but which has been shown to have an effect on phonology, for example, in the context of phonological acquisition (Taft & Hambly Reference Taft and Hambly1985; Bassetti et al. Reference Bassetti, Escudero and Hayes-Harb2015). The relevance of orthography in the context of English stress is examined, for instance, in the discussion of suffixation in chapter 2, ‘English word stress and the Guierrian school’, by Quentin Dabouis, Jean-Michel Fournier, Pierre Fournier and Marjolaine Martin. Assuming the framework in question, this chapter favours the expression ‘strong endings’ (over ‘strong suffixes’) ‘because endings, not just suffixes, may influence the location of primary stress’ (p. 60). The authors provide the pair locátion–Napóleon as an example: while -ion/-eon is a suffix in the former and part of the stem in the latter, the location of stress in both forms can be accounted for by the same rule, which targets sequences defined as -{i,e,u}+V(C $_0$ (e)). Additional rules for strong endings are provided in an appendix to the chapter.

More examples on how orthographic information can be relevant to stress patterns in English come from processes such as the alternation between full and reduced vowels in cases of trisyllabic shortening (e.g., div[aɪ]ne $\sim $ div[ɪ]nity), and velar softening (e.g., criti[k] $\sim $ criti[s]ise), explored in chapter 4 (‘English phonology and the literate speaker: some implications for lexical stress’, by Quentin Dabouis). As implied by its title, this chapter focuses on the relevance of orthographic information to formalise patterns in a range of phonological processes by employing graphemes in SPE-style rules. For example, the rule for velar softening states that grapheme $\langle {c}\rangle $ becomes [s] and that grapheme $\langle {g}\rangle $ becomes [ʤ] before graphemes { $\{\langle {i}\rangle $ , $\langle {e}\rangle $ , $\langle {y}\rangle\} $ }. The use of graphemes allows for a unified generalisation that includes problematic cases such as alle[ʤ]e $\sim $ alle[g]ation.

As previously mentioned, the use of corpora is a constant in the book. Chapter 3, ‘Stress placement in etymologically prefixed disyllabic noun–verb pairs revisited: a semantic and diachronic approach’, by Jérémy Castanier, provides the reader with yet another relevant dimension in the discussion of English stress, namely the role played by semantics in the historical change of diatonic noun–verb pairs such as óbject vs. objéct. In this detailed study, several databases are used, such as a corpus of 55 dictionaries spanning from the 18th to the 21st century. The author suggests that the stress alternation in the data examined works as a marker of semantic differentiation. Under this proposal, alternating stress is found in noun–verb pairs which are semantically asymmetrical, where symmetry is present when ‘the meaning of the noun is equivalent to the meaning of the verb, being a verbal noun which can be paraphrased as the act of V-ing or the state of being V-en’ (p. 98). Thus, the pair ábstract vs. abstráct has alternating stress because it is semantically asymmetrical: an ábstract is not an ‘act of abstracting’. Not all pairs are as transparent, though, and it is often necessary to examine historical changes, which could complicate the seemingly categorical distinction between semantic symmetry and asymmetry.

As in chapter 3, we also find the use of corpora in chapter 5 (‘The stress patterns of English verbs: syllable weight and morphology’, by Quentin Dabouis and Jean-Michel Fournier). The authors investigate two generalisations traditionally assumed about monomorphemic verbs, one referring to prefixation that is semantically opaque, and one referring to the weight of final syllables. While both generalisations are discussed in SPE, only the latter seems to have survived in most post-SPE approaches to English stress (e.g., Hayes Reference Hayes1982; Hammond Reference Hammond1999); the former generalisation, in contrast, survived in few studies (e.g., Guierre Reference Guierre1979). The chapter argues that both weight and semantically opaque prefixation play a key role in stress assignment in English.

Chapter 6 (‘Lexical stress in varieties of Australian English: a corpus-based exploration’, by Anne Przewozny and Marjolaine Martin) and chapter 7 (‘Melodic complexity and lexical stress in Singapore English: an experimental study’, by Gabor Turcsan and Oriana Reid-Collins) explore lexical stress in specific varieties of English, namely Australian and Singaporean. Chapter 6, for example, examines the stress patterns in loanwords adapted from Aboriginal languages in Australia. One of its goals is to test whether speakers of the variety in question stress words initially, as is typically believed (e.g., guítar) – a hypothesis that is not confirmed by the experimental data examined in the chapter. Experimental data is also used in chapter 7, which shows that while trochees tend to be preferred in nonce words by speakers of British and American English, speakers of Singaporean English tend to switch to iambs considerably more often – especially for verbs, but approximately half of the nouns show iambic preference as well.

Chapter 8 (‘Input Optimization and lexical stress in English’, by Michael Hammond) examines the underrepresentation of exceptional patterns in English stress. The chapter combines the notions of Input Optimisation and Phonological Complexity (Hammond Reference Hammond2016) to capture the statistical asymmetries found in English, which allows for a more fine-grained definition of markedness, referred to as statistical markedness (Hammond Reference Hammond2016: 462). Simply put, the claim in question is that the distribution of exceptional patterns in the language is generated by a tendency to ‘reduce the overall complexity of a phonological system measured in terms of ranked or weighted constraint violations over winning candidates’ (p. 274). One example of an underrepresented pattern involves prenominal forms that undergo stress shift in the English Rhythm Rule (e.g., thìrtéen mén $\rightarrow $ thírtèen mén). Likewise, iambic forms such as aloof (e.g., $\breve {a}$ lóof Állen) are also under-represented, suggesting that both faithfulness (to the location of stress) and markedness violations (from unresolved clashes) are avoided in the language. Throughout the chapter, statistical patterns are extracted from different databases (§5, ‘Corpus analysis’). These databases are then used to assess the accuracy of Hammond’s constraint-based analysis and the predictions made by the Input Optimisation framework.

Finally, chapter 9 (‘A solution to theoretical shortcomings in the stress assignment of words in English’, by Eiji Yamada) presents Positional Function Theory (Yamada Reference Yamada2010). The chapter examines a well-known class of exceptions to the English Main Stress Rule (Chomsky & Halle Reference Chomsky and Halle1968), namely words such as ìnformátion, cònfirmátion, prèservátion and trànsportátion. This class is exceptional insofar as they are not predictable on the basis of stress inheritance by cyclicity and transparency (e.g., infórm but *ìnfòrmátion). Consequently, these words are typically assumed to have a flat structure. The solution proposed by Yamada is a completely new framework of analysis, one that is based on a number of positional functions (sixteen, to be specific) that work as ‘parameters’ that can be activated under certain conditions for each word one examines. The interaction of these parameters is best visualised on a two-dimensional plane where the primary-stressed syllable is centred at (0,0) along the x and y axes. Of crucial importance is the function Alveolar Consonant Sequence (ACS), which is triggered by the den syllable in còndènsátion but not by the for syllable in ìnformátion. Two important points to consider under this model are (a) the phonological motivation behind each function proposed, and (b) how this particular model could be applied to other stress systems (and whether this is indeed something the model was designed to do, naturally).

The book is well-structured and generally well-written. While it provides a coherent narrative throughout, the different approaches explored may at times feel disconnected, especially when one considers chapters that are not based on the Guierrian school (e.g., chapters 8 and 9). The chapters on different Englishes are certainly a strong asset in the volume, but some readers may wonder if chapters on additional varieties could have been included in the volume – for example, Indian English, whose stress pattern involves some unique phonological features (Fuchs & Maxwell Reference Fuchs and Maxwell2015). Furthermore, there are areas that could benefit from further refinement. Specifically, in some chapters, the text could be polished to enhance clarity, and the resolution of some figures could be improved.

All in all, New Perspectives on English Word Stress offers a combination of extensive empirical descriptions, a collection of references to accessible databases, and distinct formal approaches (generative and non-generative) to known challenges in the analysis of English stress. As such, it offers a significant contribution to students and researchers who wish to pursue this and other topics in phonology that can benefit from said combination.