Prosodic unit

Segment of speech that occurs with a single prosodic contour Minor (foot) breakMajor (intonation) break|‖IPA number507, 508EncodingEntity (decimal)|​‖Unicode (hex)U+007C U+2016 In linguistics, a prosodic unit is a segment of speech that occurs with specific prosodic properties. These properties can be those of stress, intonation (a single pitch and rhythm contour), or tonal patterns. Prosodic units occur at a hierarchy of levels, from the syllable, the metrical foot and phonological word to the intonational unit (IU) and to a complete utterance. However, the term is often restricted to intermediate levels which do not have a dedicated terminology. Prosodic units do not generally correspond to syntactic units, such as phrases and clauses; it is thought that they reflect different aspects of how speech is processed, with prosodic units being generated through on-line[definition needed] interaction and processing, and with morphosyntactic units being more automated. Defining characteristics Prosodic units are characterized by several phonetic cues, such as pitch movement, pre-boundary lengthening, and pauses. Breathing, both inhalation and exhalation, only occurs at the