ABSTRACT
Research into speech production processes tends to divide into two main fields: research focusing on the generation of syntactic structure and research focusing on the generation of phonological form. While the former (not surprisingly) investigates the generation of whole utterances (Ferreira, this volume; Kempen & Hoenkamp, 1987), early models of phonological encoding have focused on the generation of single words (Dell, 1986, 1988). However, limiting the study of sound-form generation to single words means that a wide range of phonological phenomena that occur in connected speech production remain unaccounted for. The aim of this chapter is to introduce some of these phenomena and to argue that they arise during the generation of the prosodic (or rhythmic) structure of an utterance. The claim is that, following the generation of the syntactic structure of an utterance, an intervening prosodic structure is generated that groups words into prosodic units and that it is these prosodic units which guide the generation of the phonological form of the utterance.
