Recurrent Multiword Combinations in Spontaneous Speech Production: Prosodic Evidence for their Processing Advantages

Abstract

This study analyzed the prosodic realization of recurrent multiword combinations (RMCs) in Mandarin spontaneous speech production and asked whether speakers show (a) sensitivity to the junctures created by lexically associated RMCs and (b) signs of RMC holistic processing as single units. Crucially, we investigated to what extent the prosodic patterns of the RMC were mediated by its structural types and distributional properties.