ABSTRACT
Speech has to start somewhere. Utterances unfold in time, with virtually everything that adults say consisting of more than one word. Even when directed to a 9-month old child, over 93% of adult utterances consist of a connected series of words (van de Weijer, 1998, excluding vocatives and interjections). The problem this creates should be obvious. If words and phrases are separately retrieved, assembled, and articulated, there has to be a starting point. For this reason, one of the classic issues in the psychology of language is how speakers decide where to begin. Our aims in this chapter are to consider how eye-tracking methods can help answer this question and to address the perceptual and psycholinguistic considerations that are most relevant to the enterprise.
