Russian Pragmatic Markers Database: Developing Speech Technologies for Everyday Spoken Discourse

Abstract

The paper presents recent results obtained within the ongoing project dedicated to the study of Russian pragmatic markers. Pragmatic markers are obligatory elements of natural speech in any language; moreover, they are considered to be functionally important for speech production and overcoming inevitable speech difficulties. A correct understanding of use and functions of pragmatic markers is a prerequisite for solution of many applied tasks related to speech technologies. The research is carried out on the data of two speech corpora ORD corpus of Russian Everyday Speech known as One Day of Speech corpus and SAT corpus Balanced Annotated Collection of Texts, which consists primarily of monologues. The article describes the database of Russian pragmatic markers designed to support both linguistic and pragmatic studies of spoken Russian and the development of speech technologies for everyday discourse. Besides, it presents actual statistical data on pragmatic markers distribution in natural speech depending on different factors.

Keywords

• spoken speech
• pragmatics
• pragmatic markers
• everyday russian
• speech corpus