This paper will present a study on the prosodic word (hereafter PW) in Chengdu Dialect (CD), one of the prosodic constituents in the prosodic hierarchy. It argues for the existence of PW in CD by showing 1) that PW, as defined perceptually as an inseparable entity, constitutes the convergent domain of the application of a few tone and segmental sandhi rules, and 2) that this PW can not be matched with any constituent in the morpho-syntactic hierarchy, and 3) the domain of the application of these sandhi rules can not be stated in morpho-syntactic terms.

Index Terms: Chengdu Dialect, prosodic word, prosodic constituents, morphology-phonology mismatch