COMPARISON OF RUSSIAN & GERMAN QUESTION INTONATION AND STRUCTURE

? INTONATION ? (GENERAL DEFINITON) ! A) The system of significant levels and variations in pitch sequences within an utterance ! B) The type of pitch used at the end of a spoken sentence or phrase

SPECIFIED RUSSIAN DEFINITION OF INTONATION THE SOUND FACILITY OF SPEECH WITH THE HELP OF WHICH A SPEAKER AND A HEARER MARK A SEPARATE UTTERANCE IN THE STREAM OF SPEECH. IT HELPS TO DEFINE BETWEEN THE PARTS AND THE PURPOSE OF THE UTTERANCE, AND TO SUBMIT THE SUBJECTIVE RELATION TO IT. INTONATIONAL STRUCTURES DEFINE THEMSELVES THROUGH THE DIRECTION OF TONE MOVEMENT IN THE STRESSED SYLLABLE. 7 DIFFERENT TYPES OF INTONATIONAL STRUCTURES CAN BE FOUND IN RUSSIAN.

*!* Intonation is not international  For example a Russian phrase pronounced with English intonation will sound affected or hypocritical to the native speaker of Russian, whereas an English phrase with Russian intonation will sound unfriendly, rude or threatening to the native speaker of English

MEANING OF INTONATION FOR: GERMAN ! Small overall functional load ! Information is mainly transported by the syntax RUSSIAN ! Intonation adds a lot of information to sentences ! Intonation distinguishes various kinds of utterances (narration, command, question) ! Divergences from the neutral sentence stress reveal the sentence´s information

WORD ORDER IN QUESTIONS (EXAMPLE QUESTION:“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?“) GERMAN “Hörst Du mir zu?“ Listening – you – me? V – S – O RUSSIAN “Vi myenya slishitye?“ You – me – listening? S – O – V BUT IN GENERAL: FREE WORD ORDER

DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS AND THEIR INTONATION: GERMAN IN GERMAN THERE DO NOT EXIST ANY OBLIGATORY RULES CONCERNING QUESTION INTONATION, BUT ONLY PROTOTYPICAL ONES! 2 MAIN TYPES: QUESTIONS WITH QUESTION WORD (COPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS); FALLING PITCH YES/NO QUESTIONS (WITHOUT QUESTION WORD => PEREMPTORY QUESTIONS); RISING PITCH RUSSIAN YES/NO QUESTIONS (PEREMPTORY QUESTIONS):NO QUESTION PARTICLES, NO SPECIAL WORD ORDER => DEFINED AS QUESTIONS BY THEIR INTERROGATIVE INTONATION ONLY; RISING PITCH ON THE STRESSED SYLLABLE; FOLLOWED BY A LOWERING OF THE NEXT SYLLABLES QUESTION-WORD QUESTIONS (COMPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS WITH/WITHOUT PITCH ACCENT): A RISE ON THE QUESTION WORD AND A HIGH TONE ON THE PART BETWEEN THE INITIAL RISE AND THE FINAL FALL.

PEREMPTORY QUESTIONS (Recordings of native speakers) (“What time is it?“) GERMAN “Wie spät ist es?“ RUSSIAN “Kotorij tchas?“

ANY QUESTIONS ???