A Phonetic Account of the Terminology, Form, and Grammatical Classification of "Filled Pauses"

The article processing charge was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 491192747 and the Open Access Publication Fund of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.The terms hesitation, planner, filler, and filled pause do not always refer to the same phonetic entities. This terminological conundrum is approached by investigating the observational, explanatory, and descriptive inadequacies of the terms in use. Concomitantly, the term filler particle is motivated and a definition is proposed that identifies its phonetic exponents and describes them within the linguistic category of particles. The definition of filler particles proposed here is grounded both theoretically and empirically and then applied to a corpus of spontaneous dialogues with 32 speakers of German, showing that in addition to the prototypical phonetic forms, there is a substantial amount of non-prototypical forms, i.e., 9.5%, comprising both glottal (e.g., [Ɂ]) and vocal forms (e.g., [ɛɸ], [j˜ɛvə]). The grammatical classification and the results regarding the phonetic forms are discussed with respect to their theoretical relevance in filler particle research and corpus studies. The phonetic approach taken here further suggests a continuum of phonetic forms of filler particles, ranging from singleton segments to multi-syllabic entities.Peer Reviewe

Acoustic vowel quality of filler particles in German

The vowel quality of filler particles (FP) is studied for 24 speakers of German who produced 666 instances of vocalic (äh) and vocalic-nasal forms (ähm) in spontaneous dialogues. The FP vowel quality is compared to reference vowels of a word list as well as to phonologically and graphematically similarly constructed lexical syllables. Filler particles show a complete overlap with the reference vowels [÷] and [5], but overlap only partially with [E] and [@]

Acoustic vowel quality of filler particles in German

The vowel quality of filler particles (FP) is studied for 24 speakers of German who produced 666 instances of vocalic (äh) and vocalic-nasal forms (ähm) in spontaneous dialogues. The FP vowel quality is compared to reference vowels of a word list as well as to phonologically and graphematically similarly constructed lexical syllables. Filler particles show a complete overlap with the reference vowels [÷] and [5], but overlap only partially with [E] and [@]

Die Phonetik von äh und ähm

In diesem Open-Access-Buch wird untersucht, welche akustischen Eigenschaften Füllpartikeln wie äh und ähm in spontansprachlichen Dialogen des Deutschen zeigen und welche linguistischen Kontexte dabei auf welche Weise ihre akustische Form beeinflussen. Malte Belz betrachtet hierfür die phonetischen Parameter Dauer, Tonhöhe, Vokalqualität sowie Phonationsmodus und analysiert den Einfluss dreier granular verschiedener Kontextebenen auf die Form: die Mikroebene enthält Annotationen der adjazenten Laut- oder Pausenumgebung, die Mesoebene erfasst Intonationsphrasen und auf der Makroebene sind dialogstrukturelle Einheiten wie Fragen oder Antworten annotiert. Der Intonationsphrasenkontext übt den deutlichsten Effekt auf Füllpartikeln aus – so ist am Phrasenanfang ihr Vokal offener, während am Phrasenende ihre Dauer länger und ihre Tonhöhe tiefer ist. Dieses Ergebnis wird komplementiert durch Effekte auf der Mikroebene, während der Einfluss der Dialogstruktur inkonsistent bleibt. Die vorliegende Untersuchung zeigt damit, dass die Realisierung von Füllpartikeln – wie andere Wörter auch – allgemeinen prosodischen Prinzipien folgt

Section-by-section analysis of linguistic fluency in learner language

In this corpus-based study we explore three measurements of L2 fluency – articulation rate, filler particles, and pauses –, both within and between two registers of spontaneous dialogues spoken by Polish learners of German. The measurements are assessed both in toto (as calculated over the whole dialogue) and in parte (as calculated for specific sections). The sections are identified on a quantitative tier that divides the dialogue into four parts, and qualitatively on two linguistically-informed tiers, comprising sections based on dialogue move and task. We challenge the assessment of fluency as an average measurement over the entire dialogue, showing that a sectionwise analysis offers a better understanding of similarities and differences both within and between the two registers.Peer Reviewe

Interaction between Phrasal Structure and Vowel Tenseness in German: An Acoustic and Articulatory Study

Phrase-final lengthening affects the segments preceding a prosodic boundary. This prosodic variation is generally assumed to be independent of the phonemic identity. We refer to this as the ‘uniform lengthening hypothesis’ (ULH). However, in German, lax vowels do not undergo lengthening for word stress or shortening for increased speech rate, indicating that temporal properties might interact with phonemic identity. We test the ULH by comparing the effect of the boundary on acoustic and kinematic measures for tense and lax vowels and several coda consonants. We further examine if the boundary effect decreases with distance from the boundary. Ten native speakers of German were recorded by means of electromagnetic articulography (EMA) while reading sentences that contained six minimal pairs varying in vowel tenseness and boundary type. In line with the ULH, the results show that the acoustic durations of lax vowels are lengthened phrase-finally, similarly to tense vowels. We find that acoustic lengthening is stronger the closer the segments are to the boundary. Articulatory parameters of the closing movements toward the post-vocalic consonants are affected by both phrasal position and identity of the preceding vowel. The results are discussed with regard to the interaction between prosodic structure and vowel tenseness.Peer Reviewe