An Introduction to French Pronunciation

40 The Rhythmic Group
by which one can tell where one word ends and another begins:
there is no phonetically identifiable unit between the syllable
(see chapter 8) and the rhythmic group. Phonetically speaking,
one can say that in French the word does not exist: what is
important is not the word but the rhythmic group, as we shall
see in relation to:
(i) syllabic division – the final consonant of one word may
belong phonetically to the first syllable of the following
word (see 8.3);
(ii) the position of stress – French has group-stress not wordstress
(see 9.4);
(iii) the pronunciation of mute e (chapter 11);
(iv) intonation (chapter 20).