Open AccessASPECTUAL TRIPLETS OF THE RUSSIAN VERB IN DIACHRONY: EVIDENCE FROM THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL CORPUS
Author(s) -
Elena V. Górbova
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
kompʹûternaâ lingvistika i intellektualʹnye tehnologii
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
ISSN - 2075-7182
DOI - 10.28995/2075-7182-2020-19-321-347
Subject(s) - verb , linguistics , component (thermodynamics) , scope (computer science) , polysemy , computer science , part of speech , artificial intelligence , history , mathematics , physics , philosophy , thermodynamics , programming language
The paper deals with the so-called aspectual triplets of the Russian verb. Based on the data from the Russian National Corpus, it proposes a diachronic method to study triplets as well as a two-component model of the Russian aspect as an alternative to the traditional word-based classification model. The first component of the model is a morphological mechanism of the imperfectivizing suffixation of prefixed verbs that is inflectional (ras-kry-t’PFV — ras-kryva-t’IPFV2 ‘disclose, reveal’), but has a limited scope of action (prefixed verbs only). The second component of the model is the actionality (lexical aspect) with a maximal scope. Related to the verb class as a whole, it is especially crucial for non-prefixed simplexes. Actionality enables the functioning and perfective / imperfective characterization of simplexes which do not fall under the inflectional grammatical aspect. The analysis of ten biimperfective triplets resulted in several observations and conclusions. One of them concerns the role of a ‘joker’, which all imperfective simplexes (IPFV1) have in the aspectual triplets as (quasi)synonyms for corresponding secondary imperfectives (IPFV2). A working hypothesis on the predominance of IPFV1 over PFV in every triplet, based on the broader polysemy of the former, has not been confirmed. However, the two-component model has explanatory power for the cases of reverse frequency (PFV over IPFV1) through its lexical aspect component. Another working hypothesis on a possible increase or a decrease in the number of secondary imperfectives in diachrony was partially confirmed — an increase was noted for the 20/21st century.