Prosodic annotation in the new corpus of Russian spontaneous speech CoRuSS

Abstract

This paper deals with intonation of spontaneous Russian. It contains a description of the principles of prosodic annotation used in the new corpus of spontaneous speech - CoRuSS, and statistical data derived from this corpus. The prosodic annotation system was developed specially for the purpose; it is an extension and development of a well-known system of Intonation Constructions by E. A. Bryzgunova (7 ICs). Originally intended for teaching Russian as L2, Bryzgunova system proved to be insufficient for a detailed and adequate description of spoken Russian speech intonation. The results of the study provide statistical data on the frequency of particular intonation patterns of spontaneous Russian speech and form the basis for comparison with existing data on Russian read speech intonation; they confirm previously obtained information about new tendencies in the realization of Russian non-final and question intonation by young Russian native speakers and allow us to compare the realization and frequency of particular intonation patterns across other age-groups of native Russian speakers.