The respiratory aspects of the speech of two conversing subjects were studied. The data showed that (1) the breath regulating mechanism is independent of speech (phonation and pausing); (2) total dialogue duration can be broken down into: 25% breathing in, 25% phonation, and 50% pausing, although the absolute durations vary by subject; (3) breathing in takes less than one second, while expiration lasts four times as long; (4) "silent" pausing covers several physiological events: final expiration, breathing in, and prephonation pauses; (5) interlocutors generally speak when their partner is pausing and listener/speaker speech overlapping is minimal.