Russian Intonation Research Articles

Intonation Patterns of Soviet Russian

Very little has been published on the subject of Soviet Russian intonation.' Yet, without knowledge of proper intonation patterns, one can neither understand spoken language, nor speak intelligibly. The most significant research on intonation patterns of Soviet speech has been conducted by E. A. Bryzgunova at Moscow University. Bryzgunova's system of intonation patterns was first published in her book, Prakticeskaja fonetika i intonacija russkogo jazyka (M., 1963). This system has been reworked and expanded since that time, and has recently been published in a rather different form.2 Under the revised system, Soviet Russian intonation is described in terms of five basic and phonemic intonation constructions (intonacionnije konstruckcii) with several non-phonemic variants. They are called IK-1 (ika-odin), IK-2 (ika-dva), IK-3, IK4, IK-5. The description and functions of each type will be discussed in this article.