Russian Aspects -- A Defense

[Benjamin Sher]

Dear Professor Kieselhorst and Seelangers:

My deep apologies to those of you who were offended or inconvenienced
by my many messages. Some were a case of overkill. Others were a re-
sult of technical problems that I hope have now been corrected. What-
ever the reason, I acknowledge responsibility for them.

The subject of the aspects is an excruciating problem for Russian
students, teachers and scholars. It is imperative that the student
confront this central issue head-on. Yet, too often, the response
has been one of oversimplification, distortion and even outright de-
nial. The nearly fifty letters I have received on this subject so far
from professors, students and scholars from all over the world attest
to this.

My aspectual model and the theory and practice based on its inherent
logic are built on the masterly work of others, e.g. Forbes (RUSSIAN
REFERENCE GRAMMAR), Unbegaun (THE RUSSIAN VERB), Rassudova (ASPEC-
TUAL USAGE IN MODERN RUSSIAN), Borras and Christian (RUSSIAN SYNTAX),
Pulkina (RUSSIAN) and Thelin (VERBAL ASPECT IN DISCOURSE).  I especi-
ally recommend Professor Boris Gasparov's essay (in Thelin's book)
entitled "Notes on the 'Metaphysics' of Russian Aspect". What I have
attempted to do is to provide an underlying philosophical and prac-
tical foundation for aspectual decision-making.

Some people may ask: "why offer it through Seelangs?" (It's free,
of course, -- the charge of commercialism is beneath contempt). And
why now?

The answer is the world of the Internet, the new opportunities af-
forded by it for the advancement of knowledge, and the risks and
professional responsibilities attendant upon it.

A number of Russian tutorials have recently become available on the
Internet, some good, some not so good. It was in response to the
misleading if not downright false explanations for Russian aspectual
usage on some of these sites that I felt impelled, indeed morally
compelled to do something. The Internet lends authority and legiti-
macy to what it publishes. When it pubishes what is obviously wrong,
it should be called to account. When a subject as elusive, as com-
plex, as frustrating as Russian aspectual usage is misrepresented,
the effect on the present and future generation of students is in-
calculable.

After days of soul-searching on this matter, I decided to address
the members of Seelangs and other mailing lists.

It is my fervent hope that my letter and my essay spark a genuine
debate about the role of aspects in Russian, but even more so, about
the teaching of aspects in the classroom. From the messages I have
received it is clear that many are quite confused and perplexed by
this most vexing -- and yet most pervasive -- of Russian grammatical
issues. I hope I have made a modest contribution, both to our under-
standing of Russian aspectual usage and to the dialogue about them.

Sincerely yours,

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




>
>I was not very happy to find over ten messages queued up in my mailbox, all
>from Mr. Sher (apparently--I don't wade through this amount of material
>very carefully) touting his new work on Russian aspect.
>
>This seems like the kind of commercial use of the list that has been
>discouraged in the past, and probably should be in the future as well.  Mr.
>Sher, if you have an interested party, please send them your materials
>directly.  Otherwise numerous uninterested list subscribers must wait for
>your reams of electronic documents to transfer.
>
>Thank you.
>
>John Kieselhorst
>Northwestern University