PHONETIC MEANS OF EXPRESSING NEGATION IN MODERN BULGARIAN

The object of the current study are the phonetic means that express negation in Contemporary Bulgarian and that are part of the formal inventory of the functional and semantic category of polarity (and more precisely – part of the periphery of the negative polarity). Our interest on this topic was promoted by the lack of detailed research. The main goal here is to present a description of these specific characteristics by paying more attention to the role of intonation and stress in the speech realization of the phrases of interest. To achieve this goal, we have employed a variety of technological resources for rhythmic and melodic analysis, with the help of which we have conducted experimental research on our targeted phrases and provided graphic representation of melody and intensity of pronunciation, as well as spectrographic analysis of speech. Our data shows that stress and intonation are indeed differentiating factors in the meaning of the phonetic explicators we observe. Stress and intonation make t