Mapping between domains. The aspect–modality interaction in Russian

Abstract

This paper deals with the assignment of aspect in Russian modal constructions with adverbial or adjectival predicatives and impersonal verbs that combine with an infinitive. Unlike previous accounts, this paper takes a strictly corpus-based, quantitative approach within which corpus data on the relationship between aspect and modality are modeled using mixed effects logistic regression. Moreover, the results are cognitively motivated.The data suggest that aspect choice is predicted best by a newly introduced variablegeneric vs. specific 'State of Affairs applicability'-and not by modality type, as was previously assumed. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals a preference of imperfective infinitives for conveying deontic meanings and of perfective infinitives for expressing dynamic modality; this runs counter to most assumptions in the literature.From a cognitive linguistic point of view, the use of aspect in modal contexts as mediated by State of Affairs applicability is a case of analogical mapping between domains. In performing this cognitive operation, speakers of Russian appear to be guided by the deep similarities between the two domains: both perfective aspect and dynamic modality are bounded or marked in some respect, while imperfective aspect and deontic modality I am grateful to the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO), Belgium, for funding this project and to the research unit QLVL (Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics) for hosting it at the KULeuven (Belgium); to Oesten Dahl for countless discussions on aspect and modality during and after my stay at Stockholms Universitet (2005)(2006) and for planting the seeds that became the SoA applicability variable; to the ICLC-2007, Łódź-2008, QITL-2008 and the Linguistics Institute of St. Andrews audiences as well as the 'general linguists' at Stockholms Universitet for valuable discussions; to Neil Bermel, Bert Cornillie, Laura Janda and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper; to Ruprecht von Waldenfels (University of Bern) for sharing the load of automatically annotating, lemmatizing and aligning the corpus texts; to Harald Baayen for providing me with a draft of his 'Analyzing Linguistic Data' before it became available in print; to Kostas Triantafyllopoulos and Jean Russell (University of Sheffield) for advice on (mixed effect) logistic regression modeling; to Oesten Dahl, Leonid Oknjanskij and Nicholas LeBlanc for second-tagging some of the Russian data; and to Katya Chown, Liudmila Nedialkova and Zhenya Dobrenko (University of Sheffield) for various kinds of 'native speaker' assistance.D. Divjak ( ) Russian and Slavonic Studies,

Grammatical profiles and the interaction of the lexicon with aspect, tense, and mood in Russian

“…This introspective analysis seems to work for the minimal-pair-type examples that Šmelev & Zaliznjak offer, such as Nel'zja razbudit' otca "It is impossible to wake father" (he physically cannot be wakened) vs. Nel'zja budit' otca "Don"t wake father" (it is the wrong thing to do). In a quantitative analysis, Divjak (2009) shows that it is not controllability, but rather specificity that predicts the aspect of infinitives in such constructions. In other words, because the Russian perfective aspect is associated with specific situations, it favors interpretations in terms of individual capacity.…”

Choice of Aspect in a Russian Modal Construction

“…Therefore, in the annotation of example ( 7), the adjective is not considered to be a modifier while it is in (8). Divjak (2009) claimed that the generic vs. specific applicability of the State of Affairs is an influential factor in the prediction of aspect in modal constructions. The factor "Modifier" highlights the presence of any element that could restrict the State of Affairs to a specific situation.…”

“…In his book, Forsyth did not specifically look at whether different types of modalities influence the choice of aspect. Divjak (2009) dedicated an article to this purpose, studying factors that could predict aspect in modal constructions. She used quantitative methods to find out which factor was the most influential among modality (deontic vs. dynamic), polarity (positive vs. negative), level of agent control (high, medium, low), and State of Affairs applicability (generic vs. specific) in a dataset of 541 sentences taken from the novel Master i Margarita by Bulgakov.…”

Корпусы И Квантитативные Данные В Славянских Языках

“…Those interested in other work on this project can consult e.g. Divjak (2009Divjak ( , 2010 on aspect and modality, in which the author raises the question of how clear-cut the various proposed semantic and functional taxonomies of modality actually are when tested against corpus data.…”