BPFK Section: Hesitation

Proposed Definitions And Examples

Proposed Definition of .y

.y (Y)

Hesitation indicator. The psuedo-word ".y" is a hesitation noise. It maintains the floor while speaker decides what to say next. It is ignored for absolutely all grammatical purposes, except that before all other processing all pairs of Y+BU (i.e. ".y bu") are bound together and treated as a single word of selma'o BY (referring to the letter "y"). In particular, ".y" is skipped over by words that have special effects on nearby words (except for the special ".y bu" case above. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the following selma'o: SI, SA, SU, ZO, ZOI, and ZEI. To talk about the word ".y" (since "zo" cannot be used to quote it), use "zoi" to quote it or say "lo depsna valsi", meaning "the hesitation sound word".

• • Keywords: hesitation, uh

Examples of .y Usage

mi nelci lo pixra be lo .y. pavyseljirna

I like pictures of, umm, unicorns.

zo .y. pavyseljirna cu clani valsi

The word, umm, "unicorn" is a long word.

zo pavyseljirna cu vasru me'o .y. bu

The word "unicorn" contains the letter "y".

Impact

• Currently, SI deletes the previous ".y", and ".y" can be used as a ZOI delimiter or a word in a ZEI clause. These are almost universally considered to be bad things, and this proposal eradicates them.
• This proposal also says that ZO skips over Y, and hence cannot be used to quote it. This is rather more controversial, but simplifies word interactions substantially. Also, it is rather ridiculous to believe that "zo .y. pavyseljirna" insists that the word ".y" is a unicorn. Hesitation should be allowed absolutely everywhere that it can be.