EXPLORING ASPECTUAL OPPOSITION IN RUSSIAN: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF VIDET’ VS UVIDET’ AND SLYŠAT’ VS USLYŠAT’

This paper explores the phenomenon of aspectual opposition in Russian through a corpus-based approach. Two pairs of verbs are examined: videt’.IPF-uvidet’. PF [to see] and slyšat’.IPF-uslyšat’.PF [to hear]. Data from the Russian-Italian Parallel corpus within the Russian National Corpus are statistically analyzed across four factors: context (narrative vs dialogic), object position, contiguous verb, and meaning. The aim is to identify the contexts in which the perfective forms are preferred over the imperfective counterparts. Since these verbs are atelic, the imperfective forms constitute the most natural way to express past actions, while the perfective adds an ingressive value. The analysis reveals that for both pairs, the presence of a contiguous verb and its aspect are the most significant factors influencing aspectual choice. However, for slyšat’.IPF-uslyšat’. PF, other factors also play a role, especially verb meaning. The paper further addresses the issue of determining whether these cases exemplify aspectual opposition or competition. While aspectual competition typically occurs with telic verbs where perfective and imperfective forms share identical meanings, the verb pairs under examination are argued to occupy a midpoint on a continuum between opposition and competition.