pause (n.)

The general sense of this term applies in LINGUISTICS, PHONETICS and PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, where an attempt is made to give a precise account of the types and DISTRIBUTION of pausal phenomena and to draw conclusions concerning their FUNCTION in speech. A distinction has been drawn between silent pauses and filled pauses (e.g. ah, er), and several functions of pause have been established, e.g. for breathing, to mark GRAMMATICAL boundaries, and to provide time for the planning of new material. Pauses which have a structural function (juncture pauses) are distinguished from those involved in hesitation (hesitation pauses). Investigations of pausal phenomena have been particularly relevant in relation to developing a theory of SPEECH PRODUCTION. In GRAMMAR, the notion of potential pause is sometimes used as a technique for establishing the WORD UNITS in a LANGUAGE – pauses being more likely at word boundaries than within words.