Pauses.

The speech continuum is divided into units of different length and hierarchy by means of pauses. It is the main function of a pause to segment connected speech into utterances and intonation groups to delimit one utterance or intonation group from another. Pauses are closely related with tempo: the number and length of pauses affect the general tempo of speech.

Phoneticians distinguish 3 main types of pauses: silent pauses, pauses of percept ion and voiced (or filled) pauses.

A silent pause is a stop in the phonation (a stop of the work of the vocal cords, which results in the cessation of sound).

pauses of perception are not a stop in pronunciation, as there is no period of silence. The effect of a pause is produced by a sharp change of pitch direction, or by variations in duration, or both.

pauses of perception are generally marked by a wavy line which is used at the junction of intonation groups. E.g. The teacher says | John is very bright.

Voiced pauses have usually the quality of the central vowel [ з:(э)] with or without nasalization [ э (m) ]. They are used to signal hesitation or doubt and are therefore called hesitation pauses.

Silent pauses are subdivided into several types according to their length: short, long and extra—long. The short pause is mainly used to separate two intonation groups. The long pause which is approximately twice as long is generally used to delimit two utterances. The extra—long pause is used as a rule to separate two paragraphs. But the main factors that determine the occurrence of the type of pause are the semantic relations between the prosodic units. Short pauses indicate closer relations than long ones.

It should be noted that the duration of pauses is relative, not absolute. It may vary depending on the general tempo of speech.

Pauses are very important constituents of intonation. Besides their segmentative and delimitative functions they also perform a unifying function showing the relations between utterances or intonation groups.

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