Two asymmetric constraint families help to shape the metrical grid at prosodic boundaries. The NONFINALITY family of constraints prohibits prominence at the end of a domain. NONFINALITY constraints produce a wide range of effects and provide a uniform account of phenomena that otherwise appear to be unrelated. One NONFINALITY constraint helps to produce the falling stress contour of compounds in English. Other NONFINALITY constraints reproduce traditional foot extrametricality effects. Still other NONFINALITY constraints make metrical prominence sensitive to syllable weight. They ensure that stress avoids light syllables, sometimes shifting stress to a heavy syllable and sometimes producing lengthening effects, both iambic and trochaic. Finally, a NONFINALITY constraint helps to introduce clash or lapse near the right edge of a form. The INITIAL PROMINENCE family requires prominence at the beginning of a domain. The main role that INITIAL PROMINENCE constraints have played in previous analyses is introducing clash or lapse at the left edge of a form. Together, the NONFINALITY and INITIAL PROMINENCE constraints are responsible for the asymmetries found in the typology of word-level prominence patterns. They introduce clash and lapse configurations near the edges of prosodic words, allowing the grammar to produce patterns beyond the perfect alternation patterns.

Following a typological classification of metrical systems, word stress in most Germanic languages can be described as characterized by trochaic rhythm, rightmost main stress, left-oriented secondary stress, and quantity-sensitivity. Most Germanic languages, after contact with languages of the Romance type and incorporation of vast amounts of loanwords into their lexicon, place main stress on one of the last three syllables of the word. For most of them it has furthermore been observed that heavy syllables influence the assignment of stress, even though not necessarily in all phonological contexts. Exceptions are Icelandic and Faroese, where main stress falls consistently on the leftmost syllable of the word and syllable weight does not play any role in stress assignment. For those Germanic languages for which secondary stress has been described, parsing of left-aligning secondary stress feet can be assumed.