ABSTRACT
It has been widely observed that the phonological behavior of function words is different from that of lexical words and phrases. Nespor and Vogel (1986), Hayes (1989), and some others, motivated by the prosodic constituent considerations, combine function words with lexical items to form prosodic units, which they call clitic groups. They suggest that the function word must c-command the lexical item with which it is grouped. But some others such as Selkirk (1984, 1986) and Selkirk and Shen (1990), address the combination of function words and lexical items as prosodic words and claim that a function word is not required to c-command the lexical item within a prosodic word, nor is a lexical item required to c-command its companion function word within a prosodic word. According to Selkirk, the sandhi behavior of those prosodic words, which contain function words, is wholly decided by the edge of X o or X max , i.e., the edge condition.
