Talk does not normally consist of single words. Sometimes it does, but much more often, talk consists of a vast number of words connected together in phrases, clauses, sentences, phonological paragraphs – in whole texts of discourse. An utterance that consists of a single word is usually a response like Yes, No, Well, Maybe, OK, Certainly, Absolutely, or Tench, Paul, Cardiff, British, Male . . . But in most talk, words pile upon each other and they affect the pronunciation of each other. We have seen some of the effects of words coming together in phrases in Chapter 6. But there is another kind of effect when words come together in phrases and clauses. Just as words have a stress pattern, phrases and clauses do too as they become part of real discourse.