MELODIC CONTOUR OF YES-NO QUESTION IN WESTERN MIDDLE-RUSSIAN DIALECT WITH AKAN’JE

Abstract

This paper deals with the intonation of yes-no question in Western Middle-Russian dialect with akan’je spoken in Vyshny Volochek district of Tver region. The study, based on the material of dialectal speech recordings made in the 2017 (eight speakers born in 1926–1952, total duration — 9,5 hours), reveals that the melodic contour of yes-no question in Western Middle-Russian dialect occupies an intermediate position between corresponding tonal structures of Modern Standard Russian and those of Northern Russian dialects: while sharing rising pitch associated with the accented syllable and falling tone on the postaccented ones, it diff ers 1) from the Standard Russian owing to earlier timing of the pitch accent (with the maximum tonal point around the middle of the stressed vowel rather than at the end of the stressed syllable for the Standard variety) and the absence of truncation of the falling tune and 2) from the Northern one — due to the absence of high phrase tone on postaccented syllables. Th e difference from Western Middle-Russian dialects with okan’je lays in the domain of pretonic syllable which bears a “falling set-up”. We thus suggest the interpretation of %L L+H* L- L% for Western Middle-Russian dialects with akan’je.