Segmental representations which are not designed to indicate intermittent segments can be based on a single occurrence of the utterance, and can be tested by a single occurrence of it (which must show exactly the segments of the representation). However, segmental representations which are designed to indicate intermittent segments can be based only on a number of repetitions of the utterance (since a single occurrence of it would either contain or not contain the segment in question, and intermittency could not be noted), and can be tested only by a sufficiently large number of repetitions of the utterance.Only after such a number of repetitions can we say that an utterance has or does not have intermittently present segments.
- Harris (1951), a pag.40