Intonation system of the Surgut dialect of Khanty

Abstract

This paper aims to present the main features of the intonation system of the Surgut dialect of Khanty. The analysis of five folklore texts narrated by one native speaker distinguished three main intonation constructions (IC). The first one (IC-1), with a rising-falling tone, is typically used to mark the rheme (focus) and the end of the utterance, though its usage can vary depending on the tone level in its final part. The second (IC-2) and the third (IC-3), characterized by even and rising tone, are used on non-contrastive and contrastive themes accordingly. The intonation of utterances is shown to correlate strongly with their syntactic structure. In particular, intonation participates in the formation of complicated syntactic structures, with the IC-1 marking the detached components. Intonation is also used to express the relation between clauses: while communicatively and syntactically homogeneous, non-subordinate clauses are pronounced with IC-1, subordinate clauses are marked by IC-2. In addition, the role of intonation in forming the communicative structure of an utterance is considered. With the word order and communicative structure of Khanty relatively rigid, intonation is used mainly to mark the boundaries between the communicative components of utterances instead of marking their theme and rheme. Even in such cases, intonation is secondary to morphological means of expressing the communicative roles of noun phrases. Due to the limited research material, this work does not claim to be a complete description of the intonation system under consideration. How-ever, the results may serve as a basis for future research.