PHRASE PROSODY OF A MIDDLE-RUSSIAN DIALECT: TVER

Abstract

t: This paper deals with the phrase prosody of Middle-Russian dialect with оkan’je spoken in Kal’azin district of Tver region. The study, based on the material of dialectal speech recordings made in the 2019 (eight speakers born in 1933–1955, total duration — 10 hours), reveals that the intonational system of Tver idiom is quite similar to the Standard one in regard to its prosodic constituents as well as to their association to basic communicative categories — yes-no and whquestions, statements, imperatives and vocatives. We posit in it three pitch accents — one rising L+H* and two falling H*(+L) and H+L* as well as two final boundary tones (L% and H%). There is no phonological contrast between the initial boundary tones in Kal’azin dialect, this differentiates the idiom in question from more southern Russian dialects. The most specific point in the phonetic realization of the melodic contours of the narrow focus statements and the yes-no questions in Tver idiom as compared to other Middle-Russian dialects and Standard Russian is the significant variability in timing of the rising and falling pitch accents — from the very early to the very late. Based on the data studied we claim thus that the Tver dialect demonstrates the transition from the characteristic dialectal prosodic system based on level pitch accents to the standard one with contour tunes being significantly ahead of the neighbouring Pskov and Seliger-Torzhok dialects on this way to Modern Standard Russian.