Russian intonation patterns

[Greg Thomson]

At 12:39 -0600 08-16-1998, Rebecca E. Matveyev wrote:
>Does anyone out there know of any computer program that deals specifically
>with Russian intonation patterns (whether or not they're defined according to
>the traditional "IK" system), and that gives students practicing in listening
>to and reproducing those patterns?

Rebecca, Transparent language (http://www.transparent.com) presents
connected texts (unlike Rossetta Stone). The learner can read a sentence
aloud into the computer, and then, after having done that, play the native
Russian version from a connected text and her own version and compare them.
Intonation is one area where I notice the difference between the non-native
version and native version is often striking. Not to say that the native
version presented is the only possible one, nor that the non-native version
necessarily falls out of the range of possibility just because it happens
to differ from the native version.

But Transparent Language doesn't have a pitch analyzer, which would be nice
in comparing intonation patterns, nor is there any specific effort to
enumerate a fixed set of IKs. I'm too ignorant to argue at this point, but
very skeptical of such an enumerative approach anyway.

Greg

p.s. I've heard that Transparent Language has a fantastic sale on right
now, for a brief time.

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Greg Thomson, Ph.D. Candidate (gthomson at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca)
SIL/Thomson, Westpost P.O. Box 109, FIN 53101,
Lappeenranta, FINLAND
Phone: 7-812-246-35-48 (in St. Petersburg, Russia)