Lengthening as a discourse strategy : phonetic and phonological characteristics in Maltese

Abstract

Pausing and lengthening in speech seem to be inextricably linked. This is evidenced by the phenomenon of pre-boundary lengthening (Vaissière 1983). Analysis of new spontaneous (but, significantly, non-Map Task) data from Maltese has brought to light a distinct form of lengthening, noted also for other languages (e.g. Campione and Véronis’s 2006 “hesitation lengthening”) which involves a longer than long duration, does more than demarcate the edges of intonation phrases, and functions as more than simply as a sign of hesitation. This paper describes the distributional and the phonetic and phonological, particularly prosodic characteristics, of this phenomenon in Maltese. It examines its functions in discourse and shows how it is similar to, but also different from both filled and unfilled pauses.