Utterances

Status: Reference Last updated: 2026-10-20 (commit f7e32e22)

An utterance is the fundamental unit of a CHAT transcript. It consists of a main tier (the transcribed speech) followed by zero or more dependent tiers (annotations).

Main Tier

The main tier begins with *SPEAKER: followed by a tab and the utterance content, ending with a terminator.

*CHI:	I want a cookie .

Speaker Codes

Speaker codes are short identifiers (up to seven characters from A-Z, 0-9, _, -, '; three uppercase letters is the convention) matching a code declared in @Participants:

@Participants:	CHI Target_Child, MOT Mother
*MOT:	what do you want ?
*CHI:	cookie .

Terminators

Ordinary utterances require a terminator. The legacy @Options: CA declaration waives the missing-terminator check; intonation arrows themselves are not ordinary terminators. Do not add CA merely to silence a diagnostic: it also changes parenthetical interpretation.

Common terminators include:

Line Continuation

Long utterances wrap to the next line with a leading tab:

*MOT:	well I think that we should probably go to
	the store and get some more cookies .

Content Items

The content between *SPEAKER: and the terminator consists of content items separated by whitespace:

• Words: regular words, potentially with annotations
• Groups: bracketed content like <word word> for overlap, retrace, etc.
• Special forms: pauses (.), events &=laughs, fillers &-uh
• Separators: commas , and other punctuation

Words

Words are the primary content unit. See Word Syntax for full details.

Groups

Angle brackets < > group words for annotations:

*CHI:	<I want> [/] I want cookie .

Common group annotations:

• [/]: partial retrace (speaker repeats the same words)
• [//]: full retrace (speaker restarts with different words)
• [///]: multiple retracing (multiple false starts)
• [/-]: reformulation (speaker rephrases with different structure)
• [?]: uncertain transcription

Special Forms

*CHI:	um (.) I want &-uh cookie .

• (.): short pause
• (..): medium pause
• (...): long pause
• (1.5): timed pause in seconds
• &=laughs: paralinguistic event
• &-uh: filler

Media Linking

Utterances can include media timestamps (bullets) that link to audio/video:

*CHI:	I want cookies . •1234_5678•

The numbers represent start and end times in milliseconds. The bullets delimiting the pair render as • in most editors; on disk they are the NAK control character (U+0015). See grammar/grammar.js rule bullet.

The visible • characters above illustrate the delimiters; typing U+2022 bullets does not create the on-disk U+0015 timing markers. Use a CHAT-aware editor or a tool that writes the actual delimiters. Format validation checks their structure and applicable timing rules, not whether the interval matches the speech in the recording.

Dependent Tiers

See Dependent Tiers for documentation on %mor, %gra, %pho, %wor, and other annotation tiers that follow the main tier.

This page last changed: 2026-10-20 (commit f7e32e22). The whole book last changed: 2026-10-27 (commit 5bfee2f9).