It is possible to establish first the lowest construction domain longer than that of a single morpheme, by inspecting all the constructions of a language, and taking all those which include, or can be described as including, no smaller construction. This group of constructions may or may not have a common contour which is lacking in larger constructions, e.g. precisely one loud stress, or the domain of vowel harmony. The portions of the utterance occupied by each of these constructions may now be considered to constitute a unit length for constructions-the minimal construction length; and the boundaries of each of these constructions are boundaries of this unit length.
- Harris (1951), a pag.330