Intonation structure and intonation in SVO and OVS sentences in spoken Russian

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the difference between SVO and OVSsentences in spoken Russian, which is a language with flexible word order althoughthe basic order is SVO. Two experiments were conducted to understand the nature ofintonation. Experiment 1 shows that the Subject appears as kontrast in OVSsentences, and as background in SVO sentences. The F0 curve rises in the Objectposition when the Subject is kontrast in OVS sentences.The analysis of the results of Experiment 2 shows that the initial element of thesentence plays an important role in intonation. When it is kontrasted, it always hashigher (Hz) frequency pitch accent than the final element. There is no differencebetween SVO and OVS sentences in this respect because the initial element has highpitch accent, whether it is the Subject or the Object. The verb has no pitch accent andit has a flat intonation regardless of the WO of the sentence (SVO, OVS).