The ‘potential reading’ in Russian

Sonnenhauser, Barbara

doi:10.1007/s11185-008-9028-1

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In addition, it was found that the relation between aspect and modality is mediated by a variable that outperforms even the reversed hypothesis in predicting aspectual choice in modal contexts. The meaning of this variable, SoA applicability (generic vs. specific), predicts aspectual choice in modal constructions better than the lexical meaning of modality (dynamic vs. deontic) since the 13 An analogy-based account of the interaction between aspect and modality has the potential to reconcile radically opposed views on aspect and modality, such as those expressed by Durst-Andersen (1992) and Sonnenhauser (2008), for example. Durst-Andersen (1992, 148) claims that "perfective infinitives by themselves express alethic notions, and that imperfective infinitives express deontic notions without the assistance from modal verbs like moč' 'can' or modal predicatives like nado 'necessary' ", while Sonnenhauser (2008, 199) contends that "aspect is not modal-its semantic basis may give rise to a variety of interpretations, among them interpretations of ability and circumstantial modality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping between domains. The aspect–modality interaction in Russian

Divjak

2009

Russian Linguistics

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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,

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping between domains. The aspect–modality interaction in Russian

Divjak

2009

Russian Linguistics

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“…Šluinskij 2005; 2006), suggest that habituality is "linked" to future meaning via dispositional and circumstantial modality. A similar reasoning is presented in Sonnenhauser (2008): speakers "apply" their knowledge about habits or the predispositions of persons (→ dispositional modality), or of situations (→ circumstantial modality), to specific observations (i.e. occurrences) in order to predict that a situation will occur on this particular occasion.…”

Section: Czechmentioning

confidence: 96%

Delimitation Problems in the Non-Past Domain

Wiemer¹

2022

Славистика

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This article investigates the uses of present and future tense forms. Definitions of default uses of the present and future tenses (based on the relation to the time of utterance) are provided so that a large grey zone of overlap for dedicated present and future tense morphology can be identified. On this basis, the analysis pertains to a variety of present and future tense uses both in the South Slavic languages, in which the present and future tenses are distinguished morphologically for imperfective and perfective stems, and in the North Slavic languages, in which perfective stems do not distinguish between the present and future tenses. Regardless of this difference between South and North Slavic, basically the same delimitation problems arise, first of all, when present or future morphology is employed in directive speech acts or for non-time-located (habitual, omnitemporal) situations, which lack a distinct relation between a reference interval and the time of utterance and which thereby systematically trigger modal (dispositional, circumstantial) readings. For the present perfective these modal readings supply a bridge to future readings as their epistemic extensions (predictions). Furthermore, distributional facts support the argument that transpositions of the present tense (such as praesens narrativum and praesens pro futuro), particularly for perfective stems, fundamentally differ in the involved cognitive mechanisms from the aforementioned usage types. Moreover, in order to explain the tense uses in the non-past domain, a more systematic account of distinctions on the level of illocutions is required.

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“…39 It should be noted that there are instances where Czech seems to behave more or less in the way that Russian does. An example is the potential reading of the pf pres (see Sonnenhauser 2008, for an overview). Within the EW-model, the modal character of this use can probably only be explained in terms of sequential connection similar to the exemplary use of the pf pres in the Eastern languages.…”

Section: Evaluation Of the Explanation Of Habitual Contexts Within Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

The typology of Slavic aspect: a review of the East-West Theory of Slavic aspect

Fortuin

Kamphuis

2015

Russ Linguist

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Until recently, differences between the verbal aspectual systems of the individual Slavic languages have not received much attention and data was often interpreted to hold for all Slavic languages. Only in the past decades has this situation changed and to date a number of studies comparing two or more Slavic languages have seen the light of day. Independently from each other, Barentsen and Dickey have devised theories which account for the observed differences between respective Slavic languages. Their approaches are so similar that we think it is justified to speak of a single, comprehensive theory which attributes the differences in the functioning of the systems to differences in the meaning of the perfective and imperfective aspect for the individual languages. This leads to a typology in which there is an Eastern and a Western type of Slavic verbal aspectual system, hence the name 'EastWest Theory'. In this paper, we provide a critical analysis of this theory, focusing on three context types: habitual contexts, narrative contexts and retrospective contexts. Our analysis shows that the theory adequately and convincingly explains most of the data. However, we will also demonstrate that there are still areas in which the theory needs to be developed further, and we provide some suggestions as to how this can be approached.Аннотация Различия в употреблении глагольного вида в разных славянских язы-ках долгое время не привлекали особого внимания. Однако в последние десятилетия появилось несколько работ, направленных именно на выявление различий между дан-ными видовыми системами. Среди них наиболее последовательным и детальным под-ходом можно считать теорию противопоставления восток-запад в славянском видеWe would like to thank Adriaan Barentsen, Stephen Dickey and Hana Filip for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. We are also grateful to the members of the 'Amsterdam Slavic Aspect Circle' of the University of Amsterdam (besides Adriaan Barentsen, Magda van Duijkeren-Hrabová, René Genis, Janneke Kalsbeek, Radovan Lučić), with whom we have discussed this paper on various occasions. We are especially grateful to Iztok Mikulan and Magda van Duijkeren-Hrabová for their willingness to discuss the Slovene and Czech examples respectively with us. Any remaining mistakes are our own. ('теория восток-запад'). Эту теорию развивали (независимо друг от друга) голланд-ский славист Барентсен и американский славист Дики. Данная теория объясняет системные различия в употреблении глагольного вида в славянских языках, предла-гая разные определения общего значения видов в тех или иных группах этих языков. Противопоставляются восточный и западный типы славянского вида. В настоящем исследовании проводится критический анализ этой теории. При этом в основном рас-сматриваются три типа аспектуального контекста, играющих наиболее важную роль в теории: многократность, повествовательность и ретроспективность. Наш анализ по-казывает, что теория адекватно и убедительно объясняет имеющийся фактический материал. Однако некоторые...

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The ‘potential reading’ in Russian

Cited by 7 publications

References 14 publications

Mapping between domains. The aspect–modality interaction in Russian

Mapping between domains. The aspect–modality interaction in Russian

Delimitation Problems in the Non-Past Domain

The typology of Slavic aspect: a review of the East-West Theory of Slavic aspect

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