ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014

Time and timing in intonational phonology: analysing pitch categories in Russian (and other Slavonic languages)

Tamara Rathcke

Many Slavonic languages are still lacking a comprehensive description of their intonational phonologies. Given that decisions regarding the number of relevant categories and their types are the key issues of any phonological analysis, this presentation will concentrate on how time and timing can inform intonational phonology. Evidence from Russian (and also Bulgarian, Czech and Polish) will demonstrate that time pressures arising from intermittent voicing and an upcoming phrase boundary have different effects on Slavonic vs. Germanic languages. Potential implications of these findings for prosodic typology will be discussed.