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A cadence that ends on the dominant chord (V), creating an incomplete, questioning effect.
The half cadence is your "question mark" — it pauses on the dominant, leaving the listener expecting resolution. Use it at the midpoint of a phrase (creating antecedent-consequent structure) or before a new section to create anticipation.
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, finale, the “Ode to Joy” melody: the first four-bar phrase stops on the second degree of the scale over the dominant — a half cadence — and the answering phrase, identical until its last bar, closes on the tonic.
Half cadence is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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