Filled Pauses in Modern Irish

In every language there are different types of pauses, the most general division being made between filled and unfilled ones (Trouvain 2003: 27). The latter type either consists of silence or is phonetically filled with breathing, whereas in the former the so-called fillers of different kinds (separate sounds, syllables and even whole words) are used. In Modern Irish filled pauses occur quite frequently in spontaneous speech, especially on the phrase border which can be accounted for by the fact that in such speech the process of formulating thoughts takes place at the very moment of speaking. Thus, it is not uncommon that the verb is chosen as the pause filler due to its initial position. In these cases auxiliary verbs are often used (different forms of the verb ‘to be’ tá, bhí and of the copula is, an). Some other instances include pauses filled by particles (in interrogative sentences) and articles, if a noun takes the initial place in emphatic construction. The present paper presents an analysis of some of such cases based on Connacht Irish material.