Phrase prosody of Russian dialects and intonational phonology of Russian: rising pitch accent

The paper deals with the problem of phonological autosegmental-metrical interpretation for the rising pitch accent in Standard Russian, originated during the process of creation Prosody of Russian Dialects database. Extensive data are provided on the phonological interpretation of the corresponding pitch accent for yes-no question in Russian dialects, including 1) high level H* (Oskol and Smolensk idioms); 2) transitional from purely dialectal to standard (L+)H* = rising + high level (Western Middle-Russian idioms); 3) L*+H = level low + rising (Belozersk and Eastern Middle-Russian idioms); 4) L*+H* = level low + rising + high level (Kaluga and Chukhloma idioms); 5) (L+H>)* = rising tone all along the stressed syllable of the tone bearing word, continued on the poststressd syllable(s) with pitch maximum up to second poststressed syllable (Vyatka idiom). Based on the data provided and taking into consideration modern phonological approaches to phrase prosody, as well as on the obtained experimental results showing the presence of tonal plateau and lack of final boundary tone’s truncation in most of the dialectal accent types, I suggest the (L+H)* interpretation for the rising pitch accent in Standard Russian: rising tone all along the stressed syllable of the tone bearing word with tonal peak at the righthand boundary of the accented syllable.