Az izé eredete, története és mai használata

Gósy, Mária and Constantinovitsné Vladár, Zsuzsanna (2025) Az izé eredete, története és mai használata. ALKALMAZOTT NYELVTUDOMÁNY, 25 (1). pp. 44-66. ISSN 1587-1061

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Abstract

In Hungarian, there is an item of the language’s vocabulary, izé, that can be found probably in each Hungarian speaker’s mental lexicon. Although izé has no stable semantic content and practically no meaning, it can refer to any lexeme, substitute any part of speech, and take various suffixes. In addition, there is another function of this word, which is to help the speaker gain time in the case of a speech planning trouble at the level of thoughts, grammar, or finding the intended word. According to its function, we may identify it as a filler; however, fillers of the analyzed languages are real words with unambiguous semantic content. In fact, izé functions as a specific filler in Hungarian speech, providing extra time for the speaker to overcome a speech planning trouble, but it is not a filled pause, and it is entirely different from diverse discourse markers. The sound sequence izé can take on diverse syntactic roles, such as verb, noun, adjective (etc.), with the proper forms in grammatical structures since it can be conjugated and can take on a number of declination suffixes. While producing izé, the speaker may find the desired word to utter (e.g., így böködte a izének a vakondnak a fejét ‘he like prodded the head of the izé the mole’), or may continue along with the next thought (menjünk be majd oda izé milyen jó lesz ott ‘let’s go in there izé there it will be very good’). For a historical analysis, we searched for occurrences of izé in dictionaries, grammars, scientific papers, various written materials, transcribed texts of verbal communication, written text databases, and two speech databases. The trials to reveal the etymology of izé went back to the Finno-Ugric stems meaning ‘thing’ or ‘something.’ All the other explanations are admittedly vague, and there is no proper solution as to its origin. The present authors propose a novel idea that breaks away from traditional explanations. We assumed that the origin of izé was to be connected with the demonstrative pronouns (later definite articles) ez/az ‘this’ that occurred before a word the speaker wanted to produce but failed to find this word and needed some extra time for seeking for it. In addition, the articulation processes of the pronouns/articles (prolongation, shortening) and the factor of speech perception may lead to the formation of the present form of the sound sequence. The paper discusses the history of this word from its first attested occurrence up to now. The first mention of izé was found in a dictionary in 1604. During the past centuries, izé occurred in various dictionaries (that provided various explanations for its use) and in other types of written texts referring to spontaneous speech (with diverse examples). The word izé was analyzed in two speech databases: the Hegedűs Archive, which contains speech samples from the 1940s and 1950s, and the BEA spontaneous speech database, containing speech samples from 2009 and 2010. For the present study, the recordings of 36 speakers were used from the Hegedűs Archive. Nineteen occurrences of the target word produced by 16 speakers, both with and without suffixes, were found and analyzed (20 speakers did not produce izé). We found 162 occurrences of izé produced by 35 speakers (out of 50) in the spontaneous speech samples of the BEA database. For the use of izé, four categories were defined and analyzed: Word finding problem, seeking for the next thought, intended use of izé, and occurrences that could not be unequivocally categorized. The use of the word izé has been stigmatized since relatively early on. The main reason for the strong stigmatization is that it calls the listener’s attention to the speaker’s speech planning problem. Despite this fact, we believe that izé will remain a part of the Hungarian speakers’ mental lexicon for a long time as it is an extremely useful tool to help speakers gain time in case of speech planning trouble. This „filler” is unique and behaves like a linguistic chameleon in Hungarian. Keywords: izé, etymologie, speech planning trouble, Hegedűs Archive, BEA database

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