ON THE PROBLEM OF THE STUDY OF RUSSIAN NON-CLASSICAL VERSE

As one of the metric and rhythmic characteristics of Russian poetic speech, statistics of inter-stressed syllabic intervals in the text of a poem (or a number of poems) are often used. The frequency of such intervals containing a certain number of syllables is not always reasonably aligned with the meter of the poetic text. The most important (though not the only) source of aberration turns out to be the practice of comparing the occurrence of intercental intervals in non-classical verse with statistics obtained from prose. When analyzing prose, it is customary to take into account all intervals, whereas when analyz- ing verse, only those that are formed inside the line, in other words, the intervals on the verse division are ignored. As a result, a systematic error of analysis arises, because the distribution of inter-stressed intervals in Russian speech is significantly predetermined by syntax: at the junction of sentences and syntagmas long intervals are concentrated, whereas within the sentence and syntagma frequency of monosyllabic and 2-syllablic intervals sharply increases. It is clear that with the tendency of the verse to coincide with the syntagma the comparison of data on non-classical verse with unadapted statistics on prose is illegal. The article provides examples of the analysis of texts by Mayakovsky, Narbut and a number of other poets. A method is proposed for correcting the statistics of interaccental intervals obtained from prose. The general conclusion, however, remains unchanged: interval statistics cannot serve as an independent metric and rhythmic charac- teristic in the study of Russian non-classical verse.