An Investigated Relationship between Aspectual Prefixes and Verbal Semantics in Russian

AN INVESTIGATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASPECTUAL PREFIXES AND VERBAL SEMANTICS IN RUSSIANWendy M. W. Martelle, M.A.University of Pittsburgh, 2005As many students studying Russian as a second language learn, the imperfective-perfective opposition is commonly realized through prefixation. This study attempts to show a semantic relationship between Russian aspectual prefixes and the verbs that they attach to in order to become perfective. The system of verbal aspect in Russian is outlined, as well as the concept of pure aspectual verbal pairs. The semantic categories used in determining a relationship in this study were based on Talmy's (1985) categories of Purpose, Cause/Manner, Causativity and Path. Over 900 verbs that are aspectually differentiated by prefix were analyzed according to prefix and semantic category. We then utilized descriptive statistics to determine tendencies or patterns between aspectual prefixes and verbal semantics. The results of the descriptive analysis showed that there appear to be some tendencies for certain prefixes to attach to particular semantic qualities. A chi-square analysis was next carried out to establish whether there is a statistically significant relationship between aspectual prefixes and verbal semantics, and the results of this test illustrated that the association is statistically significant, but not very strong. Based on these results, this study concludes with a discussion of implications for further research into this area