>Michael Erard wrote:
>
>(Sounds like an interesting project, BTW)
>
>..while speech disfluencies
>> typically refer to filled pauses ("uh" and "um"), repetitions (of
>> segments, syllables, words or phrases), and restarts.
>>
>Kash (a hopefully realistic language spoken by non-humans; see
>
http://cinduworld.tripod.com/contents.htm ) uses the following:
>
>ena ['ena] or _ana_ equivalent to 'well' or 'hmmm...' at the beginning of a
>sentence (time-to-think particle); a shorter form _na_ might also be used,
>but is more common mid-stream, more like "er...." There's also _kaná_
>'whatchacallit', when you can't think of the right word. _na_ would only
>occur between words or phrases; kaná might occur e.g. between a prefix and
>verb--
>
>mi..kaná...rungombor
>we...ah...ruN+kombor (CAUS + demolish)
>we...ah...tore down/razed (it) or even
>
>miruN...ganá...rungombor, if the speaker had temporarily misplaced the root
>"kombor"
>
>(_na_ also functions to indicate a cleft sentence:
>
>keju na, ta pole minahan
>cheese na, not can we-eat
>"it's cheese we can't eat ~ cheese is what we can't eat" -- at least until I
>figure out a better way....)
>
>FWIW, Bahasa Indonesia uses _nah_, possibly borrowed from Dutch, as well as
>_anu_ which officially means 'thing' but is essentially just a hesitation
>particle when you can't think of the word, or get tangled up syntactically.
>(It's suprisingly similar to Japanese _ano_)
>
>In Indonesia, I sat in on a master's degree oral exam one day; the student
>began every answer with "begini, pak..." 'It's like this, sir...' --
>probably an example of "academic" register, as I never heard it much in
>everyday speech.