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DOI10.24147/2413-6182.2022.9(1). 49-66
ISSN 2413-6182 elSSN 2658-4867
HESITATIVE MARKERS ETO AND ETO SAMOE: STRUCTURAL AND TEMPORAL ASPECTS
K.D. Zaides
St. Petersburg University (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Abstract: The article discusses the structural and temporal aspects of the hesitative pragmatic markers eto ('whatsit') and eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'). Pragmatic markers, filling in hesitation pauses in speech, fulfill a hesitative function in spontaneous spoken discourse and include a wide range of structurally different units: eto ('whatsit'), eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'), kak ego/eyo/ikh ('whatshis-name, whatshername, whatretheirnames'), chto eshcho ('what else ) etc. As can be seen, by structure, hesitative markers are divided into words, word-combinations, and sentences; however, the sound duration of such markers remains uninvestigated. Considering the characteristics of speech rate in the hesitative markers with various structure - eto ('whatsit') and eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'), -it is possible to test the hypothesis of the tendency to isochronism of speech units and to reveal the mean duration of the hesitative markers. The material for the analysis was approximately 100 contexts of use of the markers eto and eto samoe from the corpus of everyday Russian speech "One Day of Speech". As a result of analyzing these markers, the mean sound duration of both markers themselves and one syllable in them was obtained. At the syllabic level, the tendency to isochronism was confirmed: one syllable in longer markers forms is pronounced slightly faster than in shorter forms - on average, 25 ms faster, and their structure turned out to be inversely proportional to their sound duration. The perspective of the study is to compare the sound duration of other hesitative markers, as well as to study the speech rate in pragmatic markers and content words, which, due to the hesitative function of markers, may differ from the rate in content units homophonic to markers.
Key words: pragmatic marker, hesitative marker, hesitation pause, speech rate, syllable duration, everyday speech, spontaneous spoken speech, corpus linguistics.
For citation:
Zaides, K.D. (2022), Hesitative markers eto and eto samoe: structural and temporal aspects. Communication Studies (Russia), Vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 49-66. DOI: 10.24147/2413-6182.2022.9(1).49-66.
About the author:
Zaides, Kristina Denisovna, PhD, researcher
© K.fl. 3audec, 2022
ORCID: 0000-0001-7528-0420
Corresponding author:
Postal address: 11, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia
E-mail: kristina.zaides@student.spbu.ru
Acknowledgements:
The presented research was supported by Saint Petersburg State University, project #75254082 "Modeling of Russian megalopolis citizens' communicative behavior in social, speech and pragmatic aspects using artificial intelligence methods"
Received: November 8, 2021
Revised: November 19, 2021
Accepted: January 15, 2022
Pragmatic markers and hesitative function
Everyday spontaneous spoken speech, so familiar to us and used in everyday life, is an attractive object of linguistic analysis. In everyday speech specifically, the tendencies of the language development are mixed, as in a melting pot, and then are formed and consolidated, cf.: "all changes in the language, which then appear in monologue speech, are forged and accumulated in the smithy of colloquial speech" [Shcherba 1957: 116]. In everyday speech, not only colloquial vocabulary and phraseology, emotionally expressive words, jargon, etc. are quite frequent, but also desemanticized units, which are traditionally described as "parasite words" (fillers], essentially "speech trash" [Si-rotinina 1974: 71, 73; Daragan 2000; Razlogova 2003; Shmelev 2004]. However, such "words without meaning", which a speaker uses, without any reflection, in various speech situations of everyday communication, are in fact "very important from the point of view of pragmatics: they help the speaker to generate and structure discourse, express his/her attitude to the very process of speech production, and also allow evaluating its result in one way or another" [Bogdanova-Beglarian 2018: 94]. One of these specific speech units are pragmatic markers (cf. more on this: [Brinton 1996; Fraser 1996; Aijmer 2013; Bogdanova-Beglarian, Filyasova 2018]], to which can be attributed hesitative markers eto ('whatsit'] and eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'], which became the research object in this paper.
Pragmatic markers are understood as functional speech units that are used by a speaker in spontaneous spoken speech unconsciously, under the influence of speech automatism (on speech automatism, see: [Zemskaya, Ki-taigorodskaya, Shiryaev 1981: 6-7]]. In such uses, the original units - words, word-combinations, and even whole sentences - are pragmaticalized, and, as a result, "in a number of their uses in everyday speech they lose (in whole or in part] their lexical and/or grammatical meaning and acquire pragmatic, trans-
fer from the category of speech units to the category of conditionally speech (communicative-pragmatic], functional, units of Russian speech" [Bogdanova-Beglarian 2014: 7].
Among pragmatic markers with different functions - approximative, reflexive, border marking, etc., - hesitative markers occupy a central place. They include such units as da ('yeah"], vot ('erQ, znachit ('well'], kak by ('like"], koro-che ('in short3, tipa ('kind of], eto ('whatsit"], eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'] and many others. The main function of such units is to fill the hesitation pause, although they often turn out to be polyfunctional. Hesitative markers, firstly, give the speaker time to think about the possible continuation of speech, and secondly, can show the interlocutor that the speech will continue, and at the moment the speaker is in search of a suitable word or expression:
1] poslednii uznal / (e-e) to li Oleg% to li Rayendar% // vot / vot ty znayesh'/ vot eto t... takoe / (...) kak eto (...) (e-e) (...) (khm) // *P kak eto mozhno na... nazvat' ? ne/ ne ne zvanie/ a kak by / ne dostizhenie/ a kak ? *P poslednii () nu uznavshii pro mesto // kak eto mozhno nazvat' ? nu koroche ... nu v obshchem ... my kogda zakryvali PP$1 (S118, man];
2] v obshchem Kirill% /ya ne znayu / eto prosto / *P pritcha vo yazyt-sekh //ya / voobshche ne znayu kak s nim obshchat'sya uzhe (S1, woman];
3] dura / vzyala koroche / *V na eto / na vystavke na MIOFe$ / *P v Moskve / nafotografirovala / s kompa koroche / nu kakie-to tam raschyoty po tselesoobraznosti/ *Vbasseina chto li postroiki/da ? (S13, woman].
Thus, one can talk about a whole set of hesitative markers as ways of filling in the hesitation pause in speech, which are used depending on the duration of the hesitation pause, which is determined by the time of searching and choosing a word, thinking about the next fragment of speech. To a first approximation, it seems that longer markers fill in longer hesitation pauses; however, such phenomena, inherent in spoken speech, as lengthening and reduction of sounds, can change the total duration of the hesitative marker, and even quite radically. In addition, there is a known tendency to isochronism of speech segments, according to which longer speech units (consisting of a larger number of syllables, words, sentences, etc.] are pronounced slightly faster than shorter ones. All this raises the question of how the sound duration of the marker is related to its structure: directly or inversely. This work aims to test the assumption on the inverse ratio between the speech rate in the marker and its structure.
1 All examples in the article are borrowed from the "One Day of Speech" corpus. In the attribution of the examples, the number of the informant to whom the speech passage belongs, as well as his/her gender, are indicated in brackets. If need be, the number and gender of his/her interlocutors are also indicated: W1, M2, etc. For more details on the ORD corpus and transcription symbols, including ones to denote some phenomena of spoken speech: *P - hesitation pause, *S - laughter, *V - sigh, # - exchange of speakers, @ - speech overlap, etc., see, for example: [Bogdanova-Beglarian 2016: 242-243].
Data and investigation methods
The source of the material for the analysis was the corpus of everyday Russian speech "One Day of Speech" (ORD], which includes spontaneous spoken speech used in different communicative situations: in offices, in shops, at home, in clinics, etc. During the corpus formation, a 24-hour recording method was used, when all the speech production of an informant who lives one day "with a voice recorder on his neck" is recorded. The volume of the corpus today is greater than 1 million words in transcripts, about 1450 hours of recording. The corpus contains the speech of 128 informants and more than 1000 of their interlocutors [Bogdanova-Beglarian et al. 2016a, b].
The sample of informants whose speech was analyzed in the present study was balanced by gender and age in order to neutralize the influence of these factors on the speech rate. The sample included 12 informants: 6 men and 6 women, 6 middle-aged (25-49 years old] and 6 elders (over 50 years old].
In the speech of the informants included in the sample, 102 examples of the use of markers eto ('whatsit'] and eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'] were identified (51 uses of each marker]. All contexts were considered in structural and functional aspects. Each marker was annotated from the point of view of composition, form and function in speech (word search or speech continuation search). In the programs ELAN1 and Praat2, linguistic annotators, a phonetic analysis of markers eto and eto samoe and their forms (including reduced and elongated ones] was carried out, and the values of markers duration in milliseconds were obtained. The mean of markers duration and the mean of one syllable duration in each marker were calculated. Then, after the normal distribution test of the obtained means of markers duration (using the Shapiro -Wilk test [Shapiro, Wilk 1965]], to compare the obtained means duration, the Student's t-test was applied in the case of the normal distribution; the Mann -Whitney U-test, its nonparametric analog, was applied in the case of the skewed distribution.
Hesitative markers eto and eto samoe: structure and functions
The typology of pragmatic markers (PM] is built primarily on their function - hesitative, border, metacommunicative, reflexive markers, etc. (for more details, see: [Bogdanova-Beglarian 2021]], as well as on structure, form, and other characteristics. Among various PMs, the following structural types can be distinguished:
• markers-words consisting of one word (phonetic word], which in some cases can decline:
1 ELAN - Linguistic Annotator (2021], available at: https://www.mpi.nl/corpus/html/ elan/ (accessed: November 7, 2021].
2 Boersma, P., Weenink, D. (2021], Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.1.10], available at: http://www.praat.org/ (accessed: November 7, 2021].
4] tak i est'/ kakya(:) eto // *P smotrel (...) vchera (...) instruktsiyu / ko-toruyu Krainii% podpisal (S7, man];
5] to est' oni znayut chto (...) znaesh' kak by eto bor'ba za mestom pod sol-ntsem (S3, woman];
• markers-word-combinations, that is, combinations of two or more words with coordinate or subordinate relations:
6] ya uzhe advokatu vru //ya govoryu /svekrov'postavila uslovie/ esliya /+ (m-m) *C ne eto samoe *V (e-e) ne oformlyu l'goty na(:) eyo kvartiru / znachit ona nas po sudu vypisyvaet (S6, woman];
7] tam i(:) s... (e) Chukovskii/i Barto/i to i syo/ *Vskazki (S44, man];
• markers-"sentences", or predicative markers, transformed from full-fledged predicative units, which were semantically, syntactically, and, sometimes, phonetically reduced, and, as a result, became pragmatic markers:
8] no prosto znaesh'/ nu () dolzhno zhe byt' v nashikh () lyudyakh khot' chto-to chelovecheskoe ! ponimaesh' // vot khot' kakoi-to gramm ostavat'sya (S136, woman];
9] on mne svoi telefon ostavil /govorit ya () etot samyi (...) ya vrach go-vorit/ lechu pozvonochnik/esli u vas budut problemy pozvonite (S30, woman].
In this article, two hesitative markers with the different syntactic structures are compared: the marker-word eto (whatsit3 and the marker-word-combination eto samoe ('whatchamacallit'] (for their detailed description, see: [Bogdanova-Beglarian 2021: 432-458]]. The aim of the study is to explore the type of relation between the marker's structure and the marker's duration (speech rate]. In addition, the marker's structure is directly related to its functions in everyday speech.
The hesitative marker eto retains residual declension: by gender, number, and case (the so-called "grammatical atavisms" [Bogdanova-Beglaryan 2019]]:
10] *V (e-e) tam devchonki byli / odna / *P takaya () rusichka bl... blond-inistaya/ a drugaya tatarochka chyornen'kaya // *V a oni pereputali pasporta // i *N govorit / vy govorit devochki / vy tak eto / nas tak primitivno prover-yaete (S39, man];
11] i govorit / tam stoyat / nu govorit tam / *P kakoi-nibud' tam eks sed'moi i (e-e) etot (e-e) bomba / *P eto tak / *P eto tak fignya u nikh (S39, man];
12] nu (...) ya (...) khochu kak by etu samuyu(:) navernoe etu (...) gruppu sdelat'/ v nei tam (...) (e-e) novosti tam (S118, man];
13] krasnye (e) / eti (m-m) / nu (m-m) kak eto nazvat'-to / (e-e) (m) nad-pisi (S131, woman].
The main form of the marker - the neuter singular form - eto - is widespread in everyday speech (more than 30 % of uses] and sometimes supplants the form that is necessary for the context. Often, this marker functions as a hesitation pause filler without the speaker's search for a specific word or
phrase, but in case of general difficulties arising in the process of speech production:
14] nu Kolya% moi igovorit/pochemu sorok pyat' ? kogda sorok dva / *P sorok pyat'// *P sorok dva (e-e) metra / sorok pyat' santimetrov // *P nu eto / sud'ya na Kolyu% tak nemnozhechko naekhala / a potom govori ... posmotrev formu sem'/govorit/a u vas nep... nevernye dannye (S6, woman];
15] vot eto proveryat' nado // a potom znaesh' eto / *P v dvadtsat' let / tam vot e... v... / v dvadtsat' let eto i... vot a potom polgoda v... po. popyzhilis' znachit/i (e-e) *V uspokoilis'/da ? (S39, man].
However, the marker eto slightly more often than the marker eto samoe is used to search for a specific word or expression (80 vs. 65 %], and therefore its main function can be considered the search:
16] nuya segodnya kak etot (...) shpion razvedchik// *P *N () s etim / *V s etoi shtukoiya ... (S85, man];
17] i srazu avtomaticheski opuskaetsya eto(:) (...) podlokotnik / chtoby razdelit'sootvetstvenno (...) nepotrebstva vsyakie (S118, man];
18] fil'try / dlya vody / s otdel'nym kranikom / + oni (e-e) i... iz tryokh (e-e) sostoyat / iz tryokh etikh (e) kartridzhei / + (e) nu () takikh tsivil'nykh (S131, woman].
In addition to the grammaticalized form of marker eto - Neutr. Sing. (Nom.-Acc. cc.], there are other case forms of the marker with prepositions (po etim, bez etogo, s etimi]:
19] v etom samom v Lente$/ *P bylo (eh) po etim talonchikam (...) (e) nu (...) nashei etoi samoi (e) ... *P (e-e) zavoda // (e-m) farforovyi etot / kak ono tam fabrika-to nasha () zamechatel'naya (S130, woman];
20] ne / vsyo pravil'no / eto yurid... yuridicheskii adres / eto zhe (...) be... bez etogo kak ego ? *O (e-e) bez ukaza otdeleniya (S7, man];
21] net-net-net-net// eto / *Vprosto eto papka / *P s etimi/ *P s glavami (S38, man].
While searching for a word, the informant fills in the pause that has arisen with a marker eto in a certain form. In this case, the form of the marker and the form of a searched word may not coincide (disharmony of forms] (in 33 % of cases], but may (twice as often - 67 %]] coincide (harmony of forms]:
22] kto-to prikololsya znachit/postavil sebe *P eti/ *P kolyosa ot bentli/ *P diski (S39, man];
23] tam / (e) vsyakie aktsii byli / v obshchem odnim slovom / Yana% davno planirovala/ kupit'/ vot etot (e) znaesh' takie/ (e-e) fil'try / dlya vody /s otdel'nym kranikom (S131, woman];
24] i pri nas (...) eto/ inspektor / kotoryi si... sidit na......*P na tei(?) / *P
nu v ZhEKe/ *P po bul'... razvitiyu / kotoraya (...) sama karty dayot (S7, man].
Interestingly, both markers often coexist in contexts (19] and sometimes even form the hesitation chains, as in example (12]. The statement that the hesitative markers eto and eto samoe are structurally different units is also
confirmed by the fact that eto, same as eto samoe, can form a single hesitative complex with another marker - eto kak ego, eto kak ono, or eto kak eto, as in examples (13], (19], and (20].
The PM eto samoe is multifunctional: it can be used as a marker highlighted the start or (less often] the end of an utterance, or implemented navigation through a phrase (and at the same time hesitative marker]. With the help of eto samoe, a speaker can correct what has already been said, or completely break a phrase, starting a new speech fragment:
25] eto samoe / a chto etoya tebe po feistaimu ne mogu dozvonit'sya / ty feistaim aktiviroval u sebya v telefone ? (M1 in talk with S106, man];
26] da // (...) slushai / nu eto samoe /ya na samom dele ne storonnik (e-e) na tabletkakh temperaturu sbivat'/ ya tam do tridtsat' devyati navernoe ne sbivayu (S109, man];
27] eto samoe/ vy naverno videli/chto mesto zanyato ? (S26, man].
The subjects of the present research were only hesitative uses of this
marker. More often than the marker eto, it is used not to search for a specific unit but to fill in a pause when thinking about the speech continuation in general (35 vs. 20 %]:
28] potom / eto samoe (...) / *P Kolya% g... a Kolya% (e-e) eto *P sud'e govorit/a vy posmotrite/ formu sem' (S6, woman];
29] slushai / a eto samoe / *P a gde on byl / (...) (e-e) (...) termos ? on sovsem tam plokhoi ? (S95, woman];
30] i ona doma tozhe zanimaetsya // i na uprazhneniyakh / snachala prostye potom mne ponovka i () eto samoe / ya nashla ei nuzhnyi (S114, woman].
The hesitative marker eto samoe, as well as eto, retains the possibility of declension (etu samuyu, v etoi samoi, eti samye, etikh samykh]; however, the Neutr. Sing. form, even when searching for a word, prevails in the material of spoken speech (55 %]:
31] da privyoz mne / etu samuyu / (m) (mb) priyomnuyu dochku-to / s zyatem (S114, woman];
32] a vot v etoi samoi shkole / v dvesti tridtsat' devyatoi / tam(:) esli opozdal / to i (...) ne puskayut v shkolu voobshche tam vakhtyory / kotorye ne puskayut (S130, woman];
33] i posle etogo / posle togo kak ty zaregistrirovan / *V vse eti samye / kto(:) kto osushchestvlyaetgarantiinyi remont (S38, man];
34] ne tak davno / nu gde-to ne znayu / mozhet byt' mesyatsa poltora nazad da / (n-n) na... nashyol dva (...) etikh samykh (...) (m-m) shlanga ot brandspoita (S118, man].
The use of the marker to search for a word or expression is the prototypical way of using the hesitative marker eto samoe (65 %], which, like the hesitative marker eto, can be consistent in form with a searched word (77 %] or not consistent (23 %]:
35] eto dlya ushei / eto z... vukovye / eti samye / mikrofony / naushniki (S38, man];
36] (em) na menya () na menya naveshano etot samyi // *P diktofon (...) s mikrofonom (S109, man];
37]ya uzhe vsyo ponyala / vot tol'ko chto eto bylo *V v etu samuyu v kishku ili (e-e) v polost' () eto ya tol'ko ne znayu (S130, woman];
38] nu i prosto kak ne znayu kak kakaya-nibud' tam (...) etot samyi (...) / kak ego tam ? tarzanka ili chto-to takoe/ v etom dukhe (S118, man].
In addition, the marker eto samoe, as well as the marker eto, forms the hesitation chains with the marker kak ego (38].
Thus, it can be concluded that markers with different structures - the marker-word eto and the marker-word-combination eto samoe - fulfill primarily a hesitative function in everyday speech, but with certain differences. The hesitative marker eto is more often used to fill in the pause when searching for a specific word or phrase, and the hesitative marker eto samoe - to fill in the pause when looking for the possible speech continuation. However, a particular speaker's repertoire of hesitative markers used in a certain communicative situation still differs depending on the time it takes him/her to search for subsequent speech units. As a result, it is necessary to analyze the temporal aspect of functioning of the markers eto and eto samoe, connected both with the general characteristics of everyday speech rate and the tendency to isochronism of its segments.
Rate of everyday spontaneous spoken speech and tendency to isochronism of speech segments
The speech rate in linguistic researches is usually measured "by the mean duration of a syllable or by the number of syllables pronounced per unit of time" [Svetozarova 1988: 216], usually per second. Since in the present paper the mean duration of the specific hesitative markers is investigated, the first method of calculating the speech rate (duration of a unit] is chosen.
The studies of spoken Russian speech rate show slightly different results, and usually the data are given in "syllables per second". The following data on the spoken speech rate are known: 5.31 syl/sec [Stepanova 2013] (the duration of one syllable is 188 ms]; 6.13 syl/sec [Skrelin 2004] (the duration of one syllable is 163 ms]. According to other data, the duration of one syllable averages 150-200 ms and differs depending on the syllable structure of the word [Krivnova 2007]. The duration of one syllable is inversely proportional to the number of syllables in a word [Ullakonoya 2005; Stepanova 2011]. Thus, according to the results of studies of spontaneous spoken speech, the duration of one syllable is on average from 150 to 200 ms, and the variance of the spontaneous speech rate is very high, compared, for example, with reading, where individual differences in speech rate are usually less [Skrelin 2004].
In addition, some characteristics of a speaker, such as gender or age, can also affect the speech rate. Men speak slightly faster than women: 5.5 syl/sec (the duration of one syllable is 182 ms] vs. 5.3 syl/sec (the duration of one syllable is 189 ms]; and younger informants speak faster than elder informants: 5.3 syl/sec (the duration of one syllable is 189 ms] vs. 6.1 syl/sec (the duration of one syllable is 164 ms] [Stepanova 2013].
Since this work investigates the relationship between the speech rate in hesitative markers (the length of the filled pause of hesitation that they form] and their structure (the number of syllables and words that form the marker], it is necessary to briefly characterize the main phenomena of everyday spoken speech that can affect the type of this connection.
Thus, the influence of the tendency to isochronism of speech segments on the duration of certain sounds in a word or a phrase is noted: "in Russian, with an increase in the number of syllables in a word, the duration of its stressed vowel tends to decrease, which can be considered as a manifestation of a general pattern of a reduction in the duration of each element with an increase in their number in a speech unit. In particular, there is a shorter mean duration of sounds in long phrases compared to that in short ones" [Svetozarova 1982: 47]. Besides, the duration of any sounds in long phrases is shorter than in short ones: "in short phrases, consisted of 6-9 sounds, the mean duration is slightly longer, and in long ones (about 20 or more sounds], slightly shorter" [Svetozarova 1983: 184]. A correlation between the number of sounds in a phrase and their duration was found: "The correlation coefficient between the mean duration of a sound and the number of sounds in a phrase varies for different speakers from -0.49 to -0.69" [Svetozarova 1988: 217]. Thus, the longer a word or a phrase, the shorter each sound in it is and the faster it is pronounced.
However, different genres of spoken speech may have a slower or faster rate. For instance, one can distinguish two registers of spoken speech - "regular" and "speedy", which differ in the syllables length: in the regular, or dialogi-cal, register used when generating phrases up to 15 syllables in length, the duration of a syllable is determined by the number of syllables in a phrase and ranges from 150 to 450 ms, however, in the speedy, or monologue, register arising within production of phrases consisting of more than 15 syllables, there is no such determination, and the duration of a syllable averages nearly 150 ms [Sherstinova 2013; Bogdanova-Beglarian, Sherstinova, Martynenko 2015]. Therefore, in speech segments small in terms of the number of syllables, the duration of a syllable certainly depends on the number of syllables in a phrase, whereas in long phrases consisting of a large number of syllables, such a dependence is not observed.
All of the above determines the relevance of research on this topic, since, firstly, the duration of the hesitative markers has not yet been studied, and, secondly, the speech rate in the hesitative markers can be influenced by a wide range of various factors: from the tendency to isochronism of speech and the
communication register to the gender and the age of a speaker. When analyzing the duration of hesitative markers, gender and age factors are not specifically investigated, and the sample of informants whose speech was analyzed is balanced by gender and age to reduce the special influence of these factors. Moreover, in the present study, the number of informants with a fast and slow speech rate was balanced, taking into account the previously obtained data on their speech rate [Metlova 2014].
Hesitative markers eto and eto samoe: speech rate and usage characteristics
The variance of the speech rate of the hesitative markers eto and eto samoe has a significant range: for example, in the reduced variants, the duration of an unstressed vowel is greatly reduced, which often happens in the marker eto samoe, and in the marker eto, a significant lengthening of an unstressed vowel is more often observed:
39] nu eto(:) (1591 ms; 1360 ms]1 (...) ka... kak im (e-e) eto samoe (737 ms] / + *P/ napisali / (...) kak zakon prinyali // *P nu ona zh tebe inspektor zhe i skazala/chto my seichas v drugom gosudarstve (S7, man];
40] u nego zhe posle meningita / u nego(:) et samoe (631 ms] / (...) on medlenno govorit / on (e-e) / dolgo emu nado d... obdumyvat' vse eti ... # dlin-naya reaktsiya/dlitel'naya (S6, woman, and W1].
The unstressed vowel in the marker eto is significantly elongated in example (39] (lasts more than one second]; in the marker eto samoe in example (40], it is greatly reduced, and the hesitative marker eto samoe itself is one phonetic word. This is the reason for the relevance of this study, since it turns out that the relationship between the speech rate in the marker and its structure is ambiguous.
Considering the duration of the hesitative markers, it is necessary to analyze several main characteristics:
1] the mean duration of different hesitative markers (can a short marker-word sound as long as a marker-word-combination, which could confirm the tendency to isochronism in absolute terms];
2] the mean duration of one syllable in different hesitative markers (does the duration of one syllable in markers differ, which could confirm the tendency to isochronism in relative terms];
3] other possible factors affecting the duration of the hesitative markers and one syllable in them (are there any characteristics of the use of the hesitative markers that affect the speech rate in them].
Thus, if both markers have approximately the same duration, then we can talk about the so-called "gold standard" of duration of hesitative markers with the element eto. Therefore, any hesitative marker will "tend" to the mean
1 In brackets after the marker, firstly, the duration of the marker itself in ms is given, and, secondly, if needed, the duration of the vowel elongation is marked.
duration of the hesitation pause filled with the marker. At the same time, the use of one or another marker is determined by its functions in everyday speech (search for a word or search for the continuation of speech], speech habits of a particular speaker, or some other reasons that are not included in the scope of this work. If the speech rate of the hesitative marker is directly proportional to its structure and the marker-word-combination has a longer duration than the marker-word, then, apparently, its structural characteristics determine the possibilities of its use.
Besides, if one syllable of a longer marker eto samoe is pronounced faster than one syllable of a shorter marker eto, this ratio confirms the tendency to isochronism of everyday speech, not only at the level of large speech segments, but also in the sphere of functioning of individual pragmatic elements of spoken speech. If the duration of one syllable in markers with different structures is approximately the same or does not differ significantly, the influence of the tendency to isochronism at the level of words and phrases is not so noticeable, and the structure of markers directly affects both their absolute and the relative duration.
Table 1 presents data on the speech rate in the markers eto and eto samoe and the duration of one syllable in them in everyday spontaneous speech, obtained as a result of analyzing 102 cases of their use.
Table 1
Mean duration of hesitative markers eto and eto samoe and one of their syllables
Marker One syllable in marker
Hesitative marker Eto Eto samoe Eto Eto samoe
Mean duration (in ms) 353,57 638,92 159,97 135,55
Mann-Whitney U-test 153 888
p-value 0,00 0,00
It turned out that the mean speech rate in the hesitative markers differs. The mean duration of the marker eto samoe is almost twice as long as the mean duration of the marker eto. Since the distribution of the obtained mean values of the duration of the hesitative marker eto is skewed, the Mann-Whitney U-test was used to test the significance of this difference. Since the probability of getting the same or more extreme value by chance (p-value] is less than 0.05, we can say that these differences in the absolute duration of the hesitative markers are significant.
However, one syllable in a longer marker eto samoe, which forms consist of four or five syllables, lasts slightly shorter than one syllable in a shorter eto, consisting of two or three syllables, depending on the form. These differences in the speech rate in the markers also turned out to be significant (p-value is less than 0.05]. At the same time, it is the difference between two- and five-
syllable markers that is the most contrasting, and more detailed differences -between three- and four-syllable markers - could not be obtained due to the limitedness of such forms in the sample. Therefore, at the level of the mean duration of one syllable of the hesitative markers, the tendency to isochronism of speech segments, including relatively short ones, such as individual pragmatic markers (consisting of 2-5 syllables], is indeed confirmed.
It seems, however, that some other factors besides structure may influence the speech rate in one syllable in different markers. Thus, in the research material, several cases of significantly reduced and, conversely, elongated forms of the markers eto and eto samoe were revealed, and the influence of the type of pronunciation on the mean duration of one syllable in the markers was tested (Table 2].
Table 2
Mean duration of one syllable in hesitative markers eto and eto samoe in normal, reduced, and elongated forms
Marker's form
Normal Reduced Elongated
Mean duration (in ms) Eto 156,04 102,75 258,33
Eto samoe 137,11 115,38 178,54
Mann-Whitney U-test 619,5 14 2
p-value 0,01 0,29 0,11
It can be noted that one syllable in the reduced hesitative marker eto samoe lasts longer than in the reduced form of the marker eto, and in the elongated form, on the contrary, it is shorter. On average, the sounds in the marker eto are elongated much more than they are reduced. However, the differences between the values of the mean duration of one syllable in reduced and elongated forms of the markers eto and eto samoe are not significant. In the normal form of the marker eto samoe, not reduced and not elongated, on average, one syllable is longer than in the normal form of the marker eto, and this difference is significant, as well as for all forms of markers (see Table 1]. Thus, the phonetic features of the markers eto and eto samoe do not significantly affect the mean duration of one syllable in them: on average, one syllable in a marker is pronounced faster, which confirms the tendency to isochronism of speech segments. No other significant differences were found.
Moreover, it is assumed that differences between the functions of the marker in everyday speech, namely, filling in a pause when searching for a specific word or when searching for any possible continuation of speech (in case of speech difficulties], can also affect the speech rate in the marker. Thus, when searching for a specific unit, it seems that, on average, a speaker can spend more time on its exact or approximate recall, search, or choice, and slightly lengthen the hesitative marker. Table 3 presents data on the mean duration of one syllable in the markers eto and eto samoe with different functions.
Table 3
Mean duration of one syllable in hesitative markers eto and eto samoe used in different functions
Marker's function Student's t-test P-value
Word search Speech continuation search
Mean duration (in ms) Eto 161,19 155,54 0,34 0,73
Eto samoe 144,22 119,64 2,94 0,00
Student's t-test 1,68 3,26
p-value 0,09 0,00
It was found that the duration of one syllable in any of the analyzed hesitative markers used in the function of filling in a pause when searching for a word is longer than the duration of one syllable in hesitative markers used when searching for a continuation of speech. However, only for the marker eto samoe these differences are statistically significant. In addition, the differences in the duration of one syllable in the forms of the markers eto and eto samoe used when searching for a continuation of speech are also significant: a search using the marker eto turns out to be more time-consuming than a search using the marker eto samoe.
Note that the marker used to search for a word can be in different forms, including the one that "prompts", "sets" the grammatical characteristics of a searched word. It is possible that the harmony of the forms of the marker and a searched word decreases the duration of the marker, while disharmony, on the contrary, increases it. Table 4 provides data on the duration of one syllable in the markers eto and eto samoe that are consistent and inconsistent in form with a searched word.
Table 4
Mean duration of one syllable in hesitative markers eto and eto samoe in case of forms harmony and disharmony
Forms harmony Forms disharmony Student's t-test P-value
Mean duration (in ms) Eto 158,99 176,75 -0,84 0,40
Eto samoe 138,94 169,54 -2,2 0,04
Student's t-test 1,38 0,27
p-value 0,17 0,79
The hypothesis of the influence of the marker and searched word consistency was confirmed, but only the differences between the consistent and inconsistent with a searched word forms of the marker eto samoe turned out to be significant: for example, one syllable in the inconsistent marker forms indeed lasts longer. However, the rest of the differences (the duration of one syl-
lable in the hesitative marker eto consistent in form in comparison with inconsistent eto and consistent eto samoe, as well as in inconsistent eto and eto samoe] were not confirmed on the material of everyday speech.
In general, as the study showed, the various characteristics of the hesitative marker eto samoe significantly affect its speech rate: one syllable in its normal forms (not reduced and not elongated] is faster than one syllable in the marker eto, especially when looking for a possible continuation of speech, as well as when searching for a word that is consistent in form with the marker. The marker eto can be significantly lengthened, and one its syllable lasts longer when searching for a continuation of speech than one syllable in the marker eto samoe, which can often be reduced in this function.
Therefore, at the syllabic level, in the hesitative markers eto and eto samoe is confirmed the tendency to isochronism of everyday spoken speech, which is also supported by the function of filling in a hesitation pause when searching for a certain word or phrase and by the disharmony of the forms of the PM and a searched word.
Conclusion
The article presents the results of analysis of the hesitative pragmatic markers eto and eto samoe and different features of their use in everyday spoken speech - structural, functional, and phonetic ones. As the study has shown, the mean duration of the hesitative marker eto samoe is almost twice as long as the mean duration of the marker eto, which rejects the proposed hypothesis of the inverse ratio between the structure of the marker and speech rate in it. The time of filling the hesitation pause with markers of different structures is not equal: the vowels in the shorter marker-word, on average, do not lengthen so much, for the total duration of the marker eto to approach the duration of the marker eto samoe. However, the mean duration of one syllable in the hesitative marker eto samoe is significantly less than the mean duration of one syllable in the marker eto, which confirms the tendency to isochronism of speech segments at the syllable level. If, in absolute terms, the speech rate in the hesitative markers is approximately the same and directly proportional to their structure, in relative terms - the duration of one syllable - the speech rate differs: it is inversely proportional to their structure. The phonetic features of the markers eto and eto samoe do not significantly affect the mean duration of one syllable in each of the forms - normal, reduced, and elongated; while the function of the marker directly correlates with its duration: for instance, the duration of one syllable in the marker eto samoe with the hesitative search function is longer than the duration of one syllable in a simple filler of the hesitation pause eto samoe, especially if there is a disharmony of the PM form and searched word. In conclusion, one syllable of the marker eto usually lasts longer than one syllable of a marker eto samoe, particularly when searching for a word that does not consistent in form with the marker.
The study has broad perspectives in the field of analyzing the everyday spoken speech rate and the duration of its various elements, including functional and pragmatic ones. Firstly, such perspectives include the comparison of the mean duration of an unfilled hesitation pause and a verbal hesitative marker, inter alia, the markers eto and eto samoe. Secondly, it is possible to analyze the duration of the entire hesitation complex as a whole, including, for example, an unfilled pause and one or more markers. Third, an interesting perspective is the study of the speech rate of markers and content words, the variance of their mean duration in one speaker's speech and the variability from speaker to speaker. It seems that markers can last longer than content words, precisely because of their hesitative function. Fourthly, it would be possible to compare the speech rate in different homophonic forms: the source word from which the pragmatic marker derives, and the marker itself, i. e., the pronoun eto and the marker eto. It is assumed that the speech rate in a content word is faster than the speech rate in a hesitative marker, as well because of functional specificity. Fifthly, the study of the duration of stressed and unstressed vowels in markers and content words, when comparing the specifics of content and purely functional words, or only markers, when comparing different markers with each other, would be indicative. Finally, a comparison of the speech rate in different markers with a similar syllable structure also belongs to the research perspectives.
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ХЕЗИТАТИВЫ ЭТО И ЭТО САМОЕ В ПОВСЕДНЕВНОЙ РЕЧИ: СТРУКТУРНО-ТЕМПОРАЛЬНЫЙ АСПЕКТ
К.Д. Зайдес
Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет (Санкт-Петербург, Россия)
Аннотация: В статье рассматриваются хезитативные прагматические маркеры это и это самое в структурно-темпоральном аспекте. Прагматические маркеры, заполняющие в речи паузы колебания, выполняют хезитативную функцию в устном спонтанном дискурсе и включают широкий набор различных по структуре единиц: это, это самое, как это, как его / её / их, что ещё и
под. По структуре, как видно, такие хезитативы разделяются на слова, словосочетания и предложения, однако длительность звучания таких маркеров остается неисследованной. Рассматривая характеристики темпа произнесения различных по структуре хезитативов - это и это самое, - можно проверить гипотезу о тенденции к изохронности речевых единиц и выявить среднее время звучания хезитативов. Материалом для анализа стали около 100 контекстов употребления маркеров это и это самое из корпуса русской повседневной устной речи «Один речевой день». В результате анализа времени звучания этих маркеров была получена средняя длительность звучания как самих маркеров, так и одного слога в них. На слоговом уровне подтверждается тенденция к изохронности: один слог в более длинных формах маркеров произносится несколько быстрее, чем в более коротких, - в среднем на 25 мс, а их структура оказывается обратно пропорциональна их длительности. В перспективе исследования - сравнение длительности других хезитативных маркеров, а также изучение темпа произнесения прагматических маркеров и полнозначных слов, который, в силу хезитативной функции маркеров, может отличаться от темпа произнесения полноценных языковых единиц, омофоничных им.
Ключевые слова: прагматический маркер, хезитативный маркер, пауза хезитации, темп речи, длительность слога, повседневная речь, устная спонтанная речь, корпусная лингвистика.
Для цитирования:
Зайдес К.Д. Хезитативы это и это самое в повседневной речи: структурно-темпоральный аспект // Коммуникативные исследования. 2022. Т. 9. № 1. С. 49-66. DOI: 10.24147/2413-6182.2022.9(1).49-66. (На англ. яз.).
Сведения об авторе:
Зайдес Кристина Денисовна, кандидат филологических наук, научный сотрудник
ORCID: 0000-0001-7528-0420 Контактная информация:
Почтовый адрес: 199034, Россия, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 11 E-mail: kristina.zaides@student.spbu.ru Финансирование:
Подготовлено при поддержке гранта Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета (проект № 75254082 «Моделирование коммуникативного поведения жителей российского мегаполиса в социально-речевом и прагматическом аспектах с привлечением методов искусственного интеллекта»)
Дата поступления статьи: 08.11.2021
Дата рецензирования: 19.11.2021
Дата принятия в печать: 15.01.2022
