The Temporal Structure of Estonian Runic Songs

Front Cover
Walter de Gruyter, 2001 - Foreign Language Study - 205 pages

The Kalevala, or runic, songs is a tradition at least a few thousand years old. It was shared by Finns, Estonians and other speakers of smaller Baltic-Finnic languages inhabiting the eastern side of the Baltic Sea in North-Eastern Europe. This book offers a combined perspective of a musicologist and a linguist to the structure of the runic songs. Archival recordings of the songs originating mostly from the first half of the 20th century were used as source material for this study. The results reveal a complex interaction between three different processes participating in singing: speech prosody, metre, and musical rhythm.

 

Contents

Chapter
1
Distribution of runic songs in time and space
7
5555
12
The textual component in runic songs
13
Some peculiarities in the geographical distribution
19
Collections and publications of Estonian
27
Summary
33
Syllabic quantity and the quantity of prosodic feet
42
Dear mother there I will live alone
76
Dear mother there I will live by my own two hands
77
Dear mother I wont have anybody of my own
78
Dear mother I wont have two whom to hold dear
79
Dear mother talking with strangers is strange talk
80
Dear mother talking with ones own is ones own talk
81
Dear mother behold your true faith
82
Dear mother behold your cheerful being
83

Overlength
48
The structure of polysyllabic words
50
Chapter 4
57
Chapter 5
63
Dear mother from me your daughter you always asked
68
Dear mother you always asked you kept counsel
69
Dear mother now you do not ask anything any more
70
Dear mother you do not ask and you do not keep counsel
71
Dear mother God the dear God knows
72
Dear mother Mary knows the gentle
73
Dear mother when I die one day
74
Dear mother when the little berry goes to the ground
75
Dear mother you left the words of song to your children
84
Dear mother you left them words of happiness
85
Dear mother therefore I cannot weep enough my mother
86
Dear mother we cannot ever mourn enough
87
Chapter 6
89
Realization of prosodic structure in recitation and laments
109
Chapter 8
129
90
180
Notes
187
94
195
100
201
Copyright

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