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comment by beezneez
beezneez  ·  3847 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Everyone says 'huh': new study on universal words

This kind of qualifies as evidence for a Speech Act, in some way. Exhaling breath as a signifier of confusion, defeat, a discourse marker, etc. I'm betting that within languages and cultures there are different functions that the lexical item "huh" would take.

There are other similar items to consider. Eh? - stereotypically a Canadianism used most often at the end of a sentence - has a different frequency than an "Ehhhhh, I don't know about that." Part of the problem is in how we transcribe it to a written code.

Just some thoughts on the topic.