What term describes where one word ends and the next one begins, especially in connected speech?

• A. Deixis
• B. Word boundary
• C. Liason
• D. Semantic Prosody

Answer: (B)

Focusing on where one word ends and the next begins is about identifying word boundaries in speech. In connected speech those boundaries aren’t always crisp, because sounds blend, vowels drop, or consonants move between words. The boundary is the conceptual point that marks the edge of one lexical item and the start of the next, and it helps us segment continuous sound into meaningful units. Prosodic cues like pauses, intonation resets, or brief lengthening can signal a boundary, and sometimes linking or blending across the boundary happens as we speak.

Deixis is about pointing to things in context (this, here, now) rather than where words split. Liaison concerns how sounds connect across word boundaries (linking sounds), which is about the process at the boundary rather than the boundary point itself. Semantic prosody refers to the emotional or attitudinal coloring that comes from the way words co-occur, not the location of word boundaries.