Accentuation and deaccentuation in Russian – a functional account
The present article is a functional analysis of intonation in Russian declarative utterances. Pragmatically relevant tonal patterns and their functions are identified and described. Utterances are analysed in terms of theme and rheme. Theme is signalled by a tonal rise and rheme by a falling tonal gesture. Beside thematic and rhematic tonal gestures, other rising accents in the utterance are ident
