Aspectual affixation of biaspectual verbs: a way to the elimination o...

Many aspectologists (e.g. Isačenko 1960; Mučnik 1966; Avilova 1968; Gladney 1982; Čertkova & Čang 1998; Zaliznjak & Šmelëv 2000) argue that there is a general trend towards the elimination of biaspectuality. According to this perspective, both biaspectual verbs (BVs) of Slavic origin and biaspectual borrowings become part of the binary system of Slavic aspect over time. This is usually accomplished via affixation: the BVs form aspectual partners, and themselves become perfective (PFV) or imperfective (IPFV) (Mučnik 1966; Schoorlemmer 1995). It is assumed that the transition from biaspectual to monoaspectual status is a long and gradual process (cf. Jászay 1999). Čertkova (1996), however, observed that 26% of BVs in Russian can actually be used in both perfective and imperfective contexts, even though their aspectual partners coexist. In contrast, only 9% of BVs have reportedly lost their biaspectuality and are now being used as exclusively PFV or IPFV verbs (cf. Čertkova 1996). Hence, the elimination of biaspectuality is far from an ascertained process. Stable biaspectuality does not seem to be a feature of borrowings only as some verbs of Slavic origin, despite having had PFV derivatives for centuries (e.g. Ru. obeščat’ - poobeščat’ ‘promise’; Cr. častiti - počastiti ‘pay for dinner/lunch’) have not yet lost their biaspectual status in dictionaries (Donchenko 1971; Anderson 2002; Kolaković 2018). Donchenko (1971) considers this evidence that BVs do not assimilate into the binary aspectual system (cf. Čertkova & Čang 1998; Gorobec 2008). 

Considering these facts, this paper addresses the following research question: do the sentential and textual levels provide evidence that BVs with aspectual partners lose their biaspectuality over time? The focus on diachrony will help to determine whether aspectual derivation is linked to the gradual elimination of biaspectuality in base verbs. The distribution in aspectual sentential functions of Russian and Croatian BVs and their centuries-old (I)PFV partners (see Table 1) will be examined in the following corpora: Russian National Corpus (Apresjan et al. 2006), CroDi (Hansack et al. 2016) and Riznica (Brozović Rončević et al. 2018). If over time the distribution of BVs in aspectual sentential functions has shifted towards a predominance of either the IPFV or the PFV aspect, it will be assumed that aspectual affixation contributes to the elimination of biaspectuality.