Partial observation and nonstandard tense uses: Russian perfective verbs in progressive interpretation
Partial observation and nonstandard tense uses: Russian perfective verbs in progressive interpretation

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on a special use of the Russian perfective past, which is virtually similar toa progressive one: it is illustrated by examples like Smotri, samolët poletel ‘Look, a plane is flying’.I show that, in fact, this use, though characteristic of a small group of motion predicates, is a part ofthe whole class of uses that express the partial access of the speaker to the situation (‘partial observation’):in this particular case, the speaker can only observe the middle phase of the situation, whilethe initial phase remains invisible. The use of perfective aspect denotes the fact that the observationperiod is short and represents the starting point of the observation as if it were the starting pointof the situation itself. Similar phenomena are found both in the class of resultative constructionsand in other construction classes: the speaker cannot observe a part of the situation and describesonly the observable phase as if it was the only one. At the same time, the class of the partial observationreadings is heterogeneous. First, some of them allow temporal clauses with the simultaneitymeaning and other contexts, characteristic of progressive constructions, while others are incompatiblewith those mechanisms. Second, only some of those constructions are lexically productive,while others, like, for instance, our progressive-like constructions, characterize a small group oflexemes. I conclude that our use does not, in fact, demonstrate combinatorial properties, characteristicof progressives, thus, no nonstandard progressive past tense use is observed. The meaning ofa past event is retained in the construction under analysis, and what is nonstandard is the fact thatthe speaker describes in the ‘online’ mode those events that have just taken place before the speechact (this use can be called ‘immediate comment’).

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