On the Necessity of a Multiple-viewpoint Analysis of Aspectual Opposition

Abstract

In the first part of the paper, the aspectual opposition of the Russian verb is analyzed both as a privative and as an equipollent opposition, taking into account two different levels of approach: an abstract approach of the semantic invariant and a specific relation to contextual meanings. On this basis, the types of cases of the so-called strong and weak opposition are explained, as well as the trivial positions of aspects. In the second part special attention is given to the peculiarities of the basic semantic types of aspectual pairs that have arisen under the influence the verbal lexical meaning character. According to the conception put up by the author, the types distinguished are 1) telic/boundedpairs, 2) pairs with relative boundary of the perfective action, 3) trivial pairs, 4) pairs with perfective meaning, 5) pairs with multiplicative-semelfactive relation and 6) delimitative pairs.