Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

Mark Dingemanse; Francisco Torreira; N. J. Enfield

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0078273

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

Mark Dingemanse ,

* E-mail: mark.dingemanse@mpi.nl

Affiliation Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
⨯
Francisco Torreira,

Affiliation Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
⨯
N. J. Enfield

Affiliations Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
⨯

Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

Mark Dingemanse,
Francisco Torreira,
N. J. Enfield

Published: November 8, 2013
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078273

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Echo-questions and 'Uh'

Posted by tebefer on 03 Sep 2014 at 11:33 GMT

Could we say that 'Uh' is the minimum articulation able to support questioning intonation?
An echo-question is stripped of its specific semantic/articulatory content and in this way it is generalized. Could this be the functional origin of 'Uh'?

No competing interests declared.

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Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

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Echo-questions and 'Uh'

Posted by tebefer on 03 Sep 2014 at 11:33 GMT