This chapter presents a systematic linguistic classification and analysis of the forms of verbal silences. While verbal silences cover unarticulated verbal signifiers chosen by the addresser (holding the floor) as a verbal means of expression (in place of particular articulated speech) signifying meaningful content, the forms of verbal silence are identified and determined by the speech grounding it. These speech forerunners are grammatical or lexical stumps signalling the location, category and content of the verbal silence in the specific utterance. These ruptured words, grammatical or lexical particles that are articulated without their required complementation, or intertextual spaces are overtly fragmented and so perceived as complete only once the verbal silence component is assumed. Verbal silence as a signifier is studied and presented from the level of a single phoneme to the level of a complete discourse or text, in line with the conventional division of linguistic into phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics-lexicon. Incorporating the study of absence as something (rather than nothing) in linguistic exploration compels us to refine notions such as ‘the zero sign’ and ellipsis, and sheds new light broadening linguistic phenomena such as suppletion and onomatopoeia.

There is an urgent need to elaborate a theory of affects for Lacanian psychoanalysis. This is Colette Soler’s intention in her book Lacanian Affects: The Function of Affect in Lacan’s Work (2015). Soler announces that she will provide a systematic overview of Lacan’s copious yet misunderstood theses on affects. Indeed, her book engages with affects like “anguish” (Fink has decided to choose this term to render the French word of angoisse, instead of the more common “anxiety”) but also sadness, joy, guilt, boredom, moroseness, anger, shame, love, hatred, enthusiasm, and so on. Soler rightly points out Lacan’s Freudian point of departure and highlights his distinctive contribution, even though she acknowledges that his concept of affect was fraught with tensions, false starts, or even contradictions. Lacan, as usual, offers brilliant insights couched in impenetrable and punning prose. When closing Soler’s book, though, one cannot help registering a certain degree of frustration: the original promise of presenting a clear and systematic Lacanian theory of affects has not been fulfilled; too often, the book remains mimetic in tone and style and not explanatory enough.

Chapter 6 investigates the earliest steps of how infants acquire the phonetic capacity to speak. It is relevant to voice quality that infants begin life with laryngeally constricted qualities, based on which they develop elaborated oral articulations with laryngeal quality as background. Ontogenetically, speech begins with the laryngeal articulator. New drawings illustrate the infant vocal tract (vs. the adult vocal tract). The companion website contains over 100 audio files of phonetic stages during the first year of life, comparing articulatory development in English with Tibeto-Burman Bái. The LAM provides the basis for understanding the distribution of non-syllabic and syllabic utterances, focusing on intermediate ‘mixed’ utterances. During the first several months of life, infants parse phonetic possibilities, refining the identity of potential individual sounds against the emerging backgrounds of long-term laryngeal qualities. Laryngeal voice quality reflects a complex interaction between the developing physiology of the infant vocal tract and the innate disposition to engage in vocal exploration, playing a crucial role in speech development.