PHRASE PROSODY OF MOSAL’SK DIALECT: WEST OR EAST?

Prosodic system of the dialect in question (Berno village, Mosal’sky district, Kaluga region) possess two “falling” pitch accents L* and H+L*, being differentiated with timing (earlier for the L*). The former one is used in the broad focus statements and the ‘hattype’ wh-questions; while the latter one is found in the statements with contrastive focus, the imperatives and the monoacentual wh-questions. Both these “falling” pitch accents has earlier timing than the corresponding accents in Standard Russian.
The main “rising” pitch accent used in Berno to mark yes-no questions, echo questions and non-fi nality is a bit similar to that H* one found in the same contexts in (South)-Western Russian dialects but differs from the latter one in a sense that it has two tonal targets — the high and the extra-high ones realized withing one and the same accented vowel; we thus analize it as H*+^H* (followed by the low final boundary tone L%) as opposed to L*+H* found in non-final phrases with the high final boundary tone H%). Phonologically these two “stepwise” pitch accents differ primarely by means of laryngealization inherent to the H*+^H* accent, which is quite similar to the Danish stød prosodic feature.
As to the linguogeografical specifications Berno idiom, its prosodic characteristics define it as on the whole the intermediate one between the Eastern and the Western Southern Russian dialects.