Russian Aspects -- be my guest!

[Benjamin Sher]

Deer Seelangers:

So how DOES a Russian make an aspectual decision?

Is it a question of morphology? Yes, but much more. It is this "more" that
so often mystifies us. Is aspectual decision-making based on some sort of
Imperfective-Perfective continuum? Is it based on number (single or frequen-
tative)? Is it based on verbal mood? Is it subjective or does it obey iron-clad
grammatical laws? Or does it depend upon the weather?

We have all agonized over this fascinating but profoundly elusive
distinction, and yet the question remains: how does a Russian IMPLEMENT an
exceedingly complex aspectual system (conditioned by morphological,
grammatical, semantic, syntactic and sylistic variables) with such
instantenous and commanding certitude? And not once but several times in
each sentence? And, of course, entirely intuitively. So much so that when
you ask him/her (as all of us no doubt have) just how he/she does it, a
native Russian will, if he were truly honest, throw up his arms in despair and
say: "Who knows?"

A Russian's attempt to EXPLAIN his aspectual decision-making is just as
clumsy and misleading, I believe, as a native English speaker's attempt
would be to explain his decision-making relative to articles (not just a
choice between TWO articles, that is, "a/n" and "the" but in fact a choice
between THREE options: "a/n", "the" or none at all: e.g. "We are students
of Russian literature" (none); "We are students of the Russian
revolutionary tradition" ("the"); "We demand a Russian approach to
literature" (a). We make these distinctions perfectly but do we really know
why?

I would like to offer my modest contribution to this pivotal question of
Russian aspectual usage in the form of a brief 8-page theoretical/practical
"Essay on Russian Aspectual Decision-Making," available free to all who
request it. It is an attempt to cut to the quick, to get at the heart of the
matter. This essay is the fruit of nearly two decades of reading,
translating and research in Russian literature and grammar and is based on
the immense work of such great scholars as Forbes, Unbegaun, Townsend,
Rassudova, Pulkina and, last but not least, to the magnificent collection of
aspectual essays found in Prof. Nils. B. Thielen' VERBAL ASPECT DISCOURSE
(especially Boris Gasparov's "Notes on the "Metaphysics of Russian Aspect"
and Alberg Jensen's remarkable essay on Chekhov' aspectual revolution). I
shall leave it to the reader to judge whether I have succeeded.

As a Russian scholar and translator, I have been profoundly dismayed to
discover fundamental misconceptions about Russian aspectual usage by
students, faculty and scholars alike, by English-speaking natives who know
but do not know how and by Russian natives who know how but have no real
idea why.

I hope by my essay to at least make a stab at correcting this deplorable
situation. I believe it is my duty to do something, to offer a possible
 solution,
or, failing that, to challenge those who are greater than me to help the student
and even, occasionally, the distinguished scholar, to come to grips with this
most excruciating of Russian grammatical conundrums. This is what the
Internet was invented for. Wasn't it? So let's use it.

A final thought: There is a famous statement about the difficulties of playing
Mozart's piano concertos. It applies no less to Russian aspectual usage: "It's
easy as pie for a child but supremely difficult for an adult."

Yours,

Benjamin Sher
Russian Literary Translator
(SOVIET POLITICS AND REPRESSION IN THE 1930's
Yale University Press, forthcoming, 1997)
sher07 at bellsouth.net