PHRASE PROSODY OF A WESTERN MIDDLE-RUSSIAN DIALECT WITH OKAN’JE

This paper deals with the intonation of the Western Middle-Russian dialects with okan’je spoken in Novgorod district of Novgorod region. The study is based on the material of dialectal speech recordings made in the 2019 and 2022 (four speakers born in 1931–1940, total duration — 7,5 hours). It reveals that the prosodic system of these dialects is relatively similar to that one of the Modern Standard Russian, sharing with it most pitch accents (L*, H*+L, L*+H) and association of tonal structures with the basic communicative categories — statements with broad and narrow focus, yes-no questions, wh-question, non-fi nality, commands and requests. Meanwhile, the diff erence between the Novgorod dialect and Standard Russian is not that noticeable and lays in the domain of phonetic realization and the degree of manifestation of particular elements of prosodic structure as well as in the degree of their prevalence rather than in the set of prosodic units. Thus, our data shows the earlier timing of the rising L*+H tonal accent and the later timing of the falling H*+L pitch accent in the dialect as well as more narrow distribution of the L* accent, which combines with the high boundary tone rather than with low one. We fi nally suggest the interpretation of LH* L- L% for the yes-no questions in Standard Russian emphasizing the contour nature of the pitch accent in this variety as opposed to L+H* H- L% for Northern Russian and L+H* L- L% for Western Middle-Russian dialects
with okan’je.