Can filled pauses be represented as linguistic items? Investigating the effect of exposure on the perception and production of um.

WHAT IT FOUND

This paper explores whether 'um' and 'uh' are processed as linguistic items in the mind.

It contains no clinical data or treatment outcomes relevant to therapy practice.

What this paper is

This is a theoretical linguistics paper investigating the mental representation of filled pauses (like 'um' and 'uh') in spontaneous speech. It uses corpus analysis, sentence acceptability judgments, and sentence recall tasks to determine if these sounds function like words or grammatical chunks. The study reports no clinical outcomes, no patient population, and no intervention results. There is nothing here to change clinical practice for speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, or physical therapy.

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