Uh Mark

Spoken language is full of disfluencies. A frequent sound expressing hesitation is uh (or any variant thereof), but its linguistic status is debated. This article offers a new perspective on hesitation particles. First, the position is defended that they are linguistic signals, hence words, and it is shown that they belong to the larger class of interjections on the basis of a number of qualitative criteria. Second, it is argued that the analysis of quotation as linguistic demonstration can be naturally extended to the possibility of quoting non-linguistic matters such as sounds, other aspects of events, and even subjective attitudes and emotions. It is then shown that interjections, including the hesitation particle uh, can be analyzed as parenthetically constructed, non-canonical quotations.