describe the non lexical fillers in english and its uses

3 Answers

2votes

Native 7630

Non lexical fillers are extra words which comes meaninglessly in case of verbal communication.

Typical non-lexical fillers in English are: er, erm, um, mm, hm, h-nmm, hh-aaaah, hn-hn, unkay, nyeah, ummum, uuh and um-hm-uh-hm.

1vote

giulia 160

[clear-throat] 2 hh-aaaah 1 nuuuuu 1 uam 1 uumm 1

[click] 22 hhh 1 nyaa-haao 1 uh 36 uun 1

[click]neeu 1 hhh-uuuh 1 nyeah 1 uh-hn 2 uuuh 1

[click]nuu 1 hhn 1 o-w 1 uh-hn-uh-hn 1 uuuuuuu 1

[click]ohh 1 hmm 2 oa 1 uh-huh 3 wow 1

[click]yeah 1 hmmmmm 1 oh 20 uh-mm 1 yah-yeah 1

[noisy-inhale] 1 hn 1 oh-eh 1 uh-uh 2 ye 1

achh 1 hn-hn 1 oh-kay 1 uh-uhmmm 1 yeah 70

ah 6 huh 2 oh-okay 2 uhh 4 yeah-okay 1

ahh 1 i 1 oh-yeah 1 uhhh 1 yeah-yeah 1

ai 1 iiyeah 1 okay 8 ukay 2 yeahh 2

am 1 m-hm 2 okay-hh 1 um 20 yeahuuh 1

ao 1 mm 2 ooa 1 um-hm-uh-hm 1 yegh 1

aoo 1 mm-hm 1 ookay 1 umm 5 yeh-yeah 1

aum 5 mm-mm 1 oooh 1 ummum 1 yei 1

eah 1 mmm 3 ooooh 1 unkay 1 yo 1

ehh 1 myeah 2 oop-ep-oop 1 unununu 1 yyeah 1

h-nmm 1 nn-hn 4 u-kay 1 uu 6

haah 1 nn-nnn 1 u-uh 4 uuh 1

hh 3 nu 1 u-uun 1 uum 6

Table 1: All Conversational Non-Lexical Sounds in the Corpus, with numbers of occurrences

0vote

Non lexical fillers serve as connecting devices. They are used when the speaker needs time to think, agrees to other's opinion or denies the matter, asks others to continue, expresses hesitatation and expresses doubt etc.

Examples:uh, ah, mmm, er, hmm, sh, ow

Your answer

Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
...

LanguageLearningBase.com (short: llb.re) is an online community for learning foreign languages.
It represents an open knowledge base. Every member can share and gain knowledge about a new language.