Some reasons why successive single word utterances are not

Two suprasegmental characteristics of three children's single-word, successive single-word and multiple-word utterances were examined spectrographically. The location of terminal pitch contour and the duration of words were compared across the three utterance types. It was found that successive single-word utterances shared suprasegmental patterns, on these dimensions, with multiple-word forms but not with single words. It is argued that successive single-word utterances are not simply single words uttered in close temporal proximity. Further, an account of the underlying organization of successive utterances is proposed.