Prosodic units, such as the phonological phrase 𝜙, typically
correspond to morphosyntactic units, such as XPs. However, prosodic
effects associated with individual morphemes may idiosyncratically
disrupt these correspondences. In particular, some morphemes may
condition 'prosodic smothering', a pattern in which outer morphemes
trigger restructuring of inner prosodic domains. Most analyses of
smothering assume that prosodically exceptional elements (i) have
regular, unremarkable syntax; and (ii) are lexically specified for
their unique prosodic effects. An alternative is to assume that
(i) the syntax of smothering triggers is special; and (ii) their
prosodic behavior follows directly from their special syntax. Here, I
argue against the command-based theory of smothering proposed by
Branan (2023), and in favor of the larger claim that smothering
effects cannot be reduced to syntactic differences. Instead, I offer
an analysis in the Cophonologies-by-Phase framework (Sande et al.
2020). Regardless of the specific implementation, prosodic smothering
requires idiosyncratic lexical specification.