This edited volume contributes to work on fillers by offering analyses of cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntactic production of fillers, pauses, and placeholders. The audience for this volume is primarily experts in linguistics. In her introduction, Barbara Fox discusses the importance of fillers in relation to morphosyntax and progressivity. In the unfolding of any utterance in any language, a particular trajectory will be projected at each moment of production. In producing syntax-relevant fillers, speakers demonstrate an attendance to syntactic projection and the preference for progressivity in conversation.
In the first chapter, Vera Podlesskaya analyzes placeholders across fifteen languages, which signal hesitation or production difficulties in speech. The placeholders have a primarily pronominal nature, may reflect the grammar of the delayed item, and can also be used in ambiguous expressions. In the second chapter, by Makoto Hayashi & Kyung-Eun Yoon, demonstratives are examined as filler words used in word formulation. In examples of Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean the authors argue that demonstratives are well-suited to word-formulation troubles and must be analyzed on their own terms rather than as recognitional devices. In the third chapter, by Nino Amiridze, filler verbs, which substitute for lexical verb forms as placeholders, are examined in Georgian. Verb-inflection items are used when speakers experience lexical retrieval troubles and can also make utterances indefinite. In the fourth chapter, Dmitry Ganenkov, Yury Lander, & Timur Maisak discuss nominal and verbal placeholders in Udi and Agul, in which placeholders have developed out of interrogative pronouns. The parallel development of placeholders in the two languages cannot be attributed to common language ancestry or contact and may point to important connections between grammatical properties of placeholders and the grammatical profile of a language.
In the fifth chapter, by Laura Dimock, the use of fillers such as ni and placeholders such as tatag for delay during word search in Navaq demonstrate distinguishable purposes, syntax, and prosody. The fillers seem to be a short-term method for halting an utterance. The placeholders move the utterance forward while indicating the yet-to-be-retrieved target word. In the sixth chapter, by Leelo Keevallik, the Estonian demonstrative see is discussed as a filler and placeholder that projects a noun and motivates the speaker or recipient to produce it. The interactional purposes of see include collaborating for word selection, continuing the progression of talk, and managing conversation structure and sensitivity. See thus seems to function as an important rhetorical device and not just a cognitive hesitation. In the seventh chapter, Honoré Watanabe describes a Sliammon Salish filler that can indicate the clitic or affix status of morphemes. Since the hesitation filler never occurs within a word, its presence between a morpheme and a word identifies the morpheme as a clitic or word. Fillers can therefore serve as analytically useful tools for understanding word boundaries and language changes, such as the loss of prefixes. In the eighth chapter, by Boyd Davis & Margaret Maclagan, pauses, fillers, placeholders, and formulaic phrases are analyzed in Alzheimer's discourse. The functional maintenance of these items despite speech decline indicates their usefulness in maintaining the structure of conversation despite the lack of ability to retrieve content. These items eventually develop from word-finding into narrative component-finding measures, showing that pragmatic conversational and interpersonal work continues even as the condition worsens.
The chapters are meant to stand on their own, but the introduction makes a useful move by situating the contributions with regard to issues and advancements in linguistic studies. The volume represents an important increase in the linguistic scope of research on fillers.
