Chapter VI

The main question addressed in this thesis is how the system of aspectual differences in Russian should be characterized. This question was first posed in the introduction and now a specific answer to it can be given. The answer proposed in this thesis is: they are characterized in terms of temporal relations. The specific temporal system that was adopted in the present work is developed in Reinhart (1986, 2000). However, since the analysis of Russian aspect is given in terms of temporal notions, any system of temporal relations can be challenged to derive the aspectual differences in Russian. A different temporal model whose potential should still be explored with respect to the Russian data is developed in Verkuyl (2001). Verkuyl’s (2001) semantic formalization of tenses is based on te Winkel (1866). The essence of this proposal is to redesign Reichenbach’s model, in particular, its basic setup, without radically changing the conceptual notions. The tense system advocated by Verkuyl is formed on the basis of te Winkel’s three oppositions: present vs. past, synchronous vs. posterior (‘posteriority’) and complete vs. incomplete (‘anteriority’). In this way, the original Reichenbachian 3x3 design is changed into a compositional 2x2x2 set up. Verkuyl (2001) maintains a fundamental distinction between the temporal and atemporal levels of semantic representation. This distinction is equivalent to the one made between predicational aspect, on the one hand, and perspective aspect and tense, on the other. Crucially, Verkuyl argues that the aspectual value of a predicate is determined only once: it remains intact and is independent of any temporal information. This view is also adopted in the present thesis. Tenses are construed as a structured set of operators on the tenseless predication, the denotation of which is called E (akin to Reichenbach’s notion of Event time). In order to accommodate the information expressed by E into the temporal structure in Verkuyl’s system, E is immediately assigned an index i: