Huh? The valuable role of interjections

Quick Summary:

Utterances like um, wow, and mm-hmm aren’t garbage—they keep conversations flowing.

That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master.“Here is this phenomenon that lives right under our nose, that we barely noticed,” says Mark Dingemanse, a linguist at Radboud University in the Netherlands, “that turns out to upend our ideas of what makes complex language even possible in the first place.

But these little words may be much more important than that.

---

More Pictures

---

Read Quick SummarySave Time

or

Article Details

Author / Journalist: Bob Holmes, Knowable Magazine

Category: Technology

Markets: United StatesNetherlandsNorwaySpain

Topics: Syndication Language History of language Science

Source Website Secure: Yes (HTTPS)

News Sentiment: Negative

Fact Checked: Legitimate

Article Type: News Report

Published On: 2025-03-09 @ 11:05:24 (17 hours ago)

News Timezone: GMT -5:00

News Source URL: arstechnica.com

Language: English

Article Length: 173 words

Reading Time: 1 minutes read

Sentences: 62 lines

Sentence Length: 3 words per sentence (average)

Platforms: Desktop Web, Mobile Web, iOS App, Android App

Copyright Owner: © Ars Technica

News ID: 26766847

View Article Analysis

About Ars Technica

Main Topics: Technology

Official Website: arstechnica.com

Update Frequency: 1 posts per day

Year Established: 1998

Headquarters: United States

News Last Updated: 1 days ago

Coverage Areas: United States

Ownership: Independent Company

Publication Timezone: GMT -5:00

Content Availability: Worldwide

News Language: English

RSS Feed: Available (XML)

API Access: Available (JSON, REST)

Website Security: Secure (HTTPS)

Publisher ID: #32

Publisher Details

Frequently Asked Questions