“The Many Faces of Perfective Aspect in Russian”

1. “The Many Faces of Perfective Aspect in Russian” Laura A. Janda University of Tromsø laura.janda@hum.uit.no http://hum.uit.no/lajanda/

2. Overview • Cluster Model: Three Metaphors • Solid vs. Substance => Perfective vs. Imperfective • Travel vs. Motion => Construal of Completability • Granular vs. Fluid => Construal of Singularizability • Cluster Model Predictions • Complex Act Perfectives and Biaspectuals • Single Act Perfectives and Allomorphy • Natural Perfectives and “Empty” Prefixes • Semantic Profiles • Constructional Profiles • Grammatical Profiles

3. Slavic Aspect: • Contrasts perfective vs. imperfective (no progressive and no neutral aspect) • Is independent of tense and other verbal categories • Implements imperfective (as unmarked) where other languages would have perfective • Has a complex and seemingly incoherent array of uses • Has a very complex system for aspectual derivation

4. Model of aspectual “pairs” has a long tradition: Vinogradov 1938, Šaxmatov 1941, Bondarko 1983, Čertkova 1996, Zaliznjak & Šmelev 2000, Timberlake 2004 Suspicions that aspectual relationships involve more complex clusters have arisen: Isačenko 1960, Bertinetto & Delfitto 2000, Tatevosov 2002, Janda forthcoming Problem:

5. What is an aspectual cluster? • An aspectual cluster is a group of verbs joined via transitive relationships on the basis of aspectual derivational morphology • All verbs in a cluster are aspectually related to a single lexical item • In addition to Imperfective Activity verbs, an aspectual cluster can include four types of Perfective verbs: • Natural Perfective, Specialized Perfective, Complex Act, Single Act

6. Four types of Perfectives: • Natural Perfective: • napisat’p‘write’, svjazat’p‘tie’, o(b)ščipat’p ‘pinch/pluck’, оkrepnut’p ‘get stronger’ • Specialized Perfective: • perepisat’p ‘rewrite’, razvjazat’p‘untie’, pererabotat’p‘revise’, vdut’p ‘blow in’, vyščipat’p‘pluck out’ • Complex Act Perfective: • popisat’p ‘write a while’, porabotqt’p‘work a while’, podut’p ‘blow a while’, poščipatp ‘pinch/pluck a while’, poskripet’p‘squeak a while’ • Single Act Perfective: • dunut’p ‘blow once’, ščipnut’p ‘pinch/pluck once’, skripnut’p‘squeak once’

7. The three metaphors • Solid vs. Substance • Construal of event aspect type • Perfective vs. Imperfective • Travel vs. Motion • Construal of Completability • Natural & Specialized Perfective vs. Complex Act Perfective • Granular vs. Fluid • Construal of Singularizability • Single Act Perfective

8. Metaphor 1 Solid vs. Substance => Perfective vs. Imperfective

9. Traditional Feature Analyses • Boundedness, Totality, Definiteness, Change vs. Stability, Sequencing vs. Simultaneity, Exterior vs. Interior, Figure vs. Ground, Punctuality vs. Durativity, Resultative • Lack intricacy needed to account for uses • Are ultimately new synonyms for perfective vs. imperfective

10. Discrete Solid Object: Fluid substance: The Two Types of Matter

11. Properties of Matter and Parameters of Aspect • Inherent Properties -- correspond to inherent structure of situations and act as default values • Interactional Properties -- correspond to discourse structure, and can override Inherent Properties • Human Interactional Properties -- correspond to pragmatic structure, and can override Inherent Properties

12. A. - G.: Properties inherent to types of matter • A. Edges • B. Shape • C. Integrity • D. Countability • E. Streamability • F. Penetrability • G. Conversions

13. Perfective: Has edges 1) Imperfective Has no edges 2) A. Edges

14. Perfective Can have various shapes 3), 4), 5) Imperfective Has no shape but can spread 6), 7), 8), 9) B. Shape

15. Perfective: A unique occurrence 10) Imperfective: Continuous processes and repetitions 11), 12) C. Integrity

16. H. – K.: Interactions of types of matter and discourse structure • H. Compatibility • I. Dynamicity • J. Salience • K. Contiguity

17. Perfective: Sequencing and future 24), 25), 26) Imperfective: Simultaneity and present 27), 28), 29), 30) H. Compatibility

18. H. Compatibility, cont’d. • Perfective embedded in imperfective: Interruption of ongoing action 31)

19. Perfective: moves story along 32) Imperfective slows story down 32) I. Dynamicity

20. Perfective: obvious, foregrounded events 32) Imperfective: backgrounded events 32), 33) J. Salience

21. Metaphor 2 Travel vs. Motion => Construal of Completability Natural & Specialized Perfective vs. Complex Act Perfective

22. Travel vs. Motion One can travel to a destination • or – One can move without a destination This distinction is grammaticalized in Russianmotion verbs: idtii‘walk (somewhere)’vs. xodit’i ‘walk (around, back and forth)’ This can be likened to the Completability of an action

23. Pisatel’ pišeti knigu. ‘The writer is writing a book.’ Professor rabotaeti v universitete. ‘The professor is working at the university.’ Completability: Note that Completability is a scale involving various kinds of construal.

24. Completability: • Many verbs are Ambiguous: • Completable • Pisatel’ pišeti knigu‘A writer is writing a book’ • Non-Completable • Pisatel’ pišeti knigi ‘A writer writes books’ • Some verbs are Non-Completable: stonat’i ‘moan’ • But some can be Completable if specialized • rabotat’i ‘work’ > pererabotat’p ‘revise’ • Few verbs are unambiguously Completable: • krepnut’i > okrepnut’p‘get stronger’

25. What Completability means for aspectual derivation: • Only verbs that can be construed as Completable have Natural Perfectives • pisat’i‘write’ > napisat’p‘write’,krepnut’i‘get stronger’ > okrepnut’p‘get stronger’ • Only verbs that can be construed as Non-Completable have Complex Act Perfectives • pisat’i‘write’> popisat’p‘write a while’, stonat’i‘moan’> postonat’p ‘moan a while’, rabotat’i‘work’> porabotat’p ‘work a while’ • Verbs that can be Completable if specialized have Specialized Perfectives • pisat’i‘write’> perepisat’p‘rewrite’, rabotat’i‘work’ > pererabotat’p‘revise’

26. Metaphor 3 Granular vs. Fluid => Construal of Singularizability Single Act Perfective

27. Granular vs. Fluid: Substances can be: Particulate, like sand Continuous, like water This can be likened to Singularizability of an action

28. Mal’čik duli na oduvančik. ‘The boy was blowing on the dandelion.’ Mal’čikdunulpna oduvančik. ‘The boy blew once on the dandelion.’ Professor rabotali v universitete. ‘The professor was working at the university.’ Singularizability:

29. What Singularizability means for aspectual derivation: • Verbs that can be construed as Non-Completable and have a Complex Act Perfective can also have a Single Act Perfective: • ščipat’i‘pinch/pluck’ + poščipat’p ‘pinch/pluck a while’ > ščipnut’p‘pinch/pluck once’ • dut’i ‘blow’ + podut’p ‘blow a while’ > dunut’p‘blow once’ • skripet’i‘squeak’ + poskripet’p ‘squeak a while’ > skripnut’p‘squeak once’ • rabotat’i‘work’ + porabotat’p‘work a while’ > *rabotnut’p‘work once’ [NB: Some are formed ad-hoc]

30. Singularizability and motion verbs: • The Non-Completable motion verbs can also be construed as Singularizable • xodit’i‘walk’ can refer to multiple round-trips, in which case there is a Single Act Perfectivesxodit’p‘make a single round trip’ On sxodilp v magazin ‘He went to the store (and came back once)’

31. Advantages of the cluster model: • The cluster model is more accurate than the “pair” model • Cluster structures are highly constrained and transparently motivated by meanings of verbs: • Verbs with Completable construals form Natural Perfectives • Verbs with Non-Completable construals form Complex Act Perfectives • Verbs with Granular construals form Single Act Perfectives • Motion verbs play a prototypical role in the system

32. Cluster Model Predictions Complex Act Perfectives and Biaspectuals Single Act Perfectives and Allomorphy

33. Complex Act Perfectives and Biaspectuals

34. Biaspectual verbs • Can express both Imperfective and Natural Perfective with the same morphological form > indicates strong tendency for Completability, which should hinder formation of Complex Act Perfectives • Over 90% are foreign borrowings • All foreign verbs have –ova- suffix, which gives verbal inflection but does not designate aspect • Empirical study tests prediction of Cluster Model

35. Empirical study • Hypothesis: • Bi-aspectual borrowed verbs are strongly Completable (telic), so they will be unlikely to form Complex Act Perfectives with po- • Imperfective borrowed verbs will be more likely to form Complex Act Perfectives with po-

36. Empirical study of Biaspectuals • Methodology: • Cull all foreign verbs from a single source • Sort Biaspectual vs. Imperfective • Collect data on frequency of unprefixed and po- prefixed (Complex Act Perfective) forms

37. Results of empirical study • 555 foreign verbs in Wheeler 1972/1992 • 349 (63%) Bi-aspectual • 206 (37%) Imperfective Yes! Logistic regression model using Pearson’s statistic yields 107.37 and the associated p-value is <.0001 Is this significant?

38. Single Act Perfectives and Allomorphy

39. A little problem... The Cluster Model claims that Single Act Perfectives are formed both with the suffix -nu (as in čixnut’ ‘sneeze once’) and with the prefix s- (primarily for motion verbs like sxodit’ ‘go someplace and come back once’). Чихнет

40. But... this is a strange combination of -nu and s- and there is very little in the scholarly literature to support grouping these two morphemes together

41. Allomorphy hypothesis • Suffix -nu and prefix s- are allomorphs if • They are in complementary distribution • They have the same function • Databases of Single Act Perfectives with -nu and s- • Statistical Analysis of distribution

42. -nu database • 295 Imperfective verbs form Single Act Perfectives with -nu • collected by Anastasia Makarova • data from Švedova et al. 1980, Zaliznjak 1980 and “Exploring Emptiness” database at UiT Плеснуть или плескануть? • includes both -nu and -аnu verbs like pleskat’ ‘splash’ which forms plesnut’ and pleskanut’ ‘splash once’ • includes both reflexive and non-reflexive verbs like kačat’/kačnut’, kačat’sja/kačnut’sja ‘swing/swing once’

43. s- database Схитрил? • 105 Imperfective verbs form Single Act Perfectives with s- • collected by Laura Janda with help from Anastasia Makarova • data from 17 V Dictionary, Zaliznjak 1980 and Isačenko 1960 • includes 11 motion verbs like xodit’/sxodit’ ‘go/go someplace and come back once’ • includes both reflexive and non-reflexive verbs like lovčit’/slovčit’, lovčit’sja/slovčit’sja ‘be sneaky/do one sneaky thing’

44. Are -nu and s- in complementary distribution?

45. chi-squared = 259.3 • (p<0.0001, df=5) • Cramer’s V = 0.8 • (enormous effect)

46. Do -nu and s- have the same function? • Yes, they can both mean ‘do something once’ • There is one verb that uses both -nu and s- to form synonyms: xvastat’: xvastnut’/xvastanut’, sxvastat’ ‘brag once’ • There are several verbs that use -nu and s- simultaneously: sgrustnut’, sgrustnut’sja, ‘feel sad once’ smetnut’, smetnut’sja ‘leap sideways (once; of animals)’, struxnut’ ‘do one cowardly thing’ Хвастнул или схвастал?

47. The function of -nu and s- is not entirely identical... • With -nu we usually extract a single cycle from a series of repeated events: čixat’/čixnut’ ‘sneeze/sneeze once’, lizat’/liznut’ ‘lick/lick once’ • With s- we often have something that actually only happened once: malodušestvovat’/smalodušestvovat’ ‘act cowardly/do once cowardly thing’ Real series of events Potential series of events -nu s-

48. Are -nu and s- in complementary distribution? Do -nu and s- have the same function? Is the Allomorphy hypothesis confirmed? Is the Cluster Model confirmed? Statistically speaking, almost. As far as we can tell, almost. Mostly. Yes. Evaluation of the Allomorphy hypothesis

49. Natural Perfectives and “Empty” Prefixes Semantic Profiles Constructional Profiles Grammatical Profiles

50. Thought experiment That’s weird! Reasonable answer: ONE prefix … but Russian has 19! (Krongauz 1998:64 ,99) Imagine a language with aspect Two values: Imperfective and Perfective Perfective = prefix + Imperfective Prefixation contributes only “Perfective” How many prefixes does this language need?