Aspectual choice in Russian perception verbs: An experimental study on videt’–uvidet’ and slyšat’–uslyšat’

Through a usage based approach, this study examines aspectual choice in two pairs of Russian perception verbs: videt’.IPF–uvidet’.PF (‘to see’) and slyšat’.IPF–uslyšat’.PF (‘to hear’). It is postulated that the imperfective (IPF) forms videt’ and slyšat’, being atelic, repre sent the unmarked and default option for expressing past actions including single, completed events. The corresponding perfective (PF) forms have been described as adding an ingressive value and therefore as marked. This study aims to establish 1) in what contexts the perfective aspect is preferred over the imperfective, and 2) whether the IPF/PF contrast in these verbs represents aspectual opposition or competition. 487 Russian native speakers were asked to complete 12 sentences by providing the missing verb in any of three possible forms: PF, IPF, or both. The sentences were annotated for the presence and aspect of a contiguous verb, the context from which the sentence was extracted (dialogue or narration), and the sense (direct/extended) in which the verb was used. Aspectual choices were determined by the complex interaction of all predictors, with the presence of another PF verb being the single strongest predictor of PF use. The conspicuous variability of inter subject agreement rates suggests that the two verbs considered may span a large portion of the continuum between opposition and competition.