Table 3. Episode 1 Final interaction between Carrie and Big Character Text with pauses

180 Eduardo Urios-Aparisi and Manuela Wagner
in connection with “pronounced pitch accents” (see also Rockwell 2000; Anolli, 
Ciceri, and Infantino 2000; Attardo et al. 2003).
As example 5 shows, a pause can strengthen the effect of humor, by allowing 
the producer of humor to add an ironic afterthought after an already ironic utter-
ance. In this case, Miranda is talking to Skipper who is besotted with her. They 
are at a party full of models. In an attempt to being funny, Skipper says, “but if 
you are not part of the beauty Olympics you can still become a very interesting 
person”. Miranda takes this comment further and restates the duality “beautiful” 
versus “interesting” using a pause. In example 6, Carrie is talking about her friend 
Barkley, who is a modelizer (a man who date models only) to Samantha, who is 
interested in him. In this case, the pause introduces a word play strengthening the 
effect of the hyperbole.
(5) Episode 1: Miranda talks to Skipper
Miranda: Well, I guess you must find me beautiful. (1.34) Or interesting.
(6) Episode 2: Carrie talks to Samantha
Samantha: Is he dating any one model in particular?
Carrie:
Actually, (0.19) He is sleeping with all of them, (0.27) in general.
In examples 7 and 8, the pause can create anticipation and give emphasis to the 
missing part of the utterance. This missing part can work as a punch line at the end 
of the joke or as a jab line in the middle of the story or the linguistic activity. The 
pause, especially the very long one (1.34 seconds) in example 5, gives the audience 
time to believe that the turn is over or builds up an expectation for the following 
utterance which becomes the jab line.
(7) Episode 3. Carrie talks to Patience and Peter
Carrie: It’s hot. (0.9) It is hot all the way from Houston West Broadway to 
72nd and Madison.
(8) Episode 3. Mr. Big talks to Carrie about her job
Big: You mean like a (0.59) hooker?
This is clearly done in the second episode by Stanford Blatch, a gay man and close 
friend of Carrie. Stanford is besotted by the underwear model Derek (Andrea 
Boccaletti) he manages. In example 9, he uses a pause at the end of a story which 
alludes to the typical joke about men’s penis size. The words after the pause be-
come the punch line taking advantage of the fact that a pause can be performed 
indicating that the speaker is holding the floor using a “no pitch boundary” as 
Wennerstrom (2009: 171) defines some kinds of pauses that are not associated to 
turn completion. The following two instances show two different pauses, the first 

Prosody of humor in Sex and the City 181
one preempts the answer to the riddle-style joke while in the second case, it adds a 
dramatic effect to the humoristic metaphor of the model with a “sable coat”
(9) Episode 3: Stanford talks to Carrie about Derek
Stanford: You know, the other day Derek and I were walking past his 
billboard and he told me that he would like to get a piece of it 
for his apartment, like maybe his nose. And I said, “you should 
get the bulge of your pants. That way when women ask you how 
Big you are you can say (0.294) 14 feet”.
(10) Episode 3: Stanford talks to Carrie about Derek
Stanford: ‘The Bone’ is like the human equivalent of the sable coat. I find 
that sometimes (0.36) I have to look away.
Example (10) matches Stanford’s generally outrageous outfits and his character-
ization as a campy middle-aged gay man who mirrors Carrie’s problems with men 
and shares her quest for the ideal person.
1
The conversation analyzed in the previous section between Carrie and her 
befriended couple Peter (David Healy) and Patience (Jennifer Guthrie) contains 
two uses of pause. In the first, Carrie uses a pause to introduce humor and ame-
liorate an embarrassing situation. The pause before “congratulations” is meant to 
be an intimate comment from a close friend. At the same time, it is a way to dispel 
the uncomfortable situation of having to tell Patience about the awkward experi-
ence she has just gone through. However, Patience is not amused and confronts 
Peter, asking if Carrie saw him naked. Peter replies, that Carrie “caught him on the 
way to the bathroom”. Patience replies ironically, stressing the fact that she does 
not believe his story by adding a pause before “on the way to the bathroom” (10). 
The pauses in the interaction shown below qualify the words following them as 
“afterthoughts” or tentative statements. In this sense, pauses control the informa-
tion flow. In order to show the interaction with all pauses, even those that do not 
have any direct connection to the humor expressed, we included the pauses (in 
seconds) also between turns.
(10) Carrie, Patience and Peter in episode 3
Patience: So, what’s happening?
Carrie:
Oh, ahm, I ran into Peter in the hallway (0.58) without 
his underwear on (slower speech rate) (2.20). PS: (0.18) 
Congratulations. (1.25)
Peter:
Sunny day. (1)
1. Stanford Blatch is “often referred to as the show’s ‘Fifth Lady’ ”, according to Wikipedia in 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_the_City_characters#Stanford_Blatch

182 Eduardo Urios-Aparisi and Manuela Wagner
Patience: Honey, did Carrie see your dick in the hall? (0.86)
Peter:
Oh yeah, she caught me on my way to the bathroom. (0.75)
Patience: Oh (0.72) On the way to the bathroom.
Peter:
Oh yeah, the good muffins.

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