The Development of Russian Aspect in the Light of Middle Russian Stem Between Computation and Interpretation
The Development of Russian Aspect in the Light of Middle Russian Stem Between Computation and Interpretation

Summary/Abstract: The Modern Russian aspectual system has been said to have risen in the Middle Russian period (esp. 16th to 17th centuries). The present study verifies the qualitative observations that lead to this assumption by applying quantitative measures. Productivity measures for aspectual morphology confirm previous findings: The prefix po- was highly productive early on, secondary imperfectivization became active in the 17th century, and affixes that are involved in the formation of complex perfectives, most notably za-, are increasingly productive in the second half of the 17th century. The results support the view that Middle Russian perfectivity shifted from totality to temporal definiteness and that perfectivity types emerged in the order natural > specialized > complex > semelfactive.

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