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The phonological word, or prosodic word (commonly shortened to pword, PrWd, or symbolised as ω) is a unit in the phonological hierarchy of words. It is often larger than a syllable, but lower than an intonational phrase. A phonological word could be a bare root, a root and its affixes, or even in some cases a compound word.[1]

Identification of prosodic words

Prosodic words can be identified by domain markers: non-linguistic or phonological signs that a speaker has reached the beginning or end of a prosodic word. Examples of domain markers could be word-final devoicing or vowel harmony.

In more formal terms, a prosodic word can be described as[2] a prosodic domain in which phonological features within the same lexical unit may spread from one morpheme to another.

“Ice cream” is a compound word: while it counts as only one word to the syntax, it can count as two (“ice” and “cream”) to the phonology.

Functional words like adpositions tend to be phonologically weak, and, as a result, they often combine to become a part of a larger prosodic word with their lexical hosts. This is common cross-linguistically.

Prosodic words in sign languages

A prosodic word in sign languages can consist of a monosyllabic sign. A monosyllabic sign can be repeated, resulting in a larger prosodic word. Domain markers in sign languages can include mouthing corresponding spoken words, pointing, or head tilting.[1]

Prosodic vs. grammatical word

The phonological word and grammatical word are not equivalent.[3] What counts as a word for the phonology can be either smaller or larger than what counts as a word for syntactic purposes. A clear case of this mismatch is compound words, which count as two words phonologically, but one in the syntax.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b “2.2.1. Prosodic word | SIGN-HUB”. thesignhub.eu. Retrieved 2026-03-30.
  2. ^ Hall, Tracy Alan (1999-06-15). “The Phonological Word”. In Hall, Tracy Alan; Kleinhenz, Ursula (eds.). A Review: The Phonological Word. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Vol. 174. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 1–22. doi:10.1075/cilt.174.02hal. ISBN 978-90-272-3680-7.
  3. ^ Nespor, Marina; Vogel, Irene (2012-03-12), “Prosodic Phonology: With a New Foreword”, Prosodic Phonology, De Gruyter Mouton, doi:10.1515/9783110977790, ISBN 978-3-11-097779-0, retrieved 2023-04-28{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  4. ^ Zsiga, Elizabeth C. (2013). The sounds of language : an introduction to phonetics and phonology. Chichester, West Sussex, UK. ISBN 978-1-4051-9103-6. OCLC 799024997.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)