FYU: Database of Russian aspectual pairs

[Kuznetsova Julia]

It is a great pleasure for us to present the Exploring Emptiness Database – a new online tool relevant for all linguists, language teachers and students interested in the category of aspect of Russian verbs. The database is freely available at http://emptyprefixes.uit.no . A user-friendly interface makes the database a useful tool for investigating a number of properties of Russian prefixes.
The database contains information on 1,426 imperfective verbs in Russian that form aspectual pairs via prefixation (there are 1,981 prefixed perfective partner verbs, because of the fact that many base verbs combine with multiple prefixes). This list is an aggregation of entries found in Malyj Akademičeskij Slovar’ (Evgen’eva, A. P., ed. 1999. Moscow: Russkij jazyk), Slovar’ russkogo jazyka (Ožegov, S. I. and N. Ju. Švedova. 2001. Moscow: Russkij jazyk), and Cubberly (Cubberly, Paul V. 1982. “On the ‘empty’ prefixes in Russian.” Russian Language Journal 36: 14-30). This database cites the verbs, their aspect, the prefixes that they use to form aspectual pairs, variation in prefixes, the morphological and semantic classes of the verbs, their frequency, the definitions of the verbs, and which of the three sources they are listed in. All of these terms can be used for searches.
This database is helpful not only for linguists doing research on Russian aspect; it can also serve as a valuable resource for pedagogical purposes. The database is a reliable source of reference information for people learning Russian as a second language. It can be used by students in both beginning and advanced stages of their studies. The database is also a highly useful resource for teachers of Russian as a foreign language.
Virtually all textbooks of Russian for second language learners focus on the concept of the aspectual pair. However, determining whether two verbs constitute an aspectual pair is not always easy, since dictionaries often disagree in their evaluations of given verbs. The database developed in the "Exploring Emptiness" project offers tables summarizing the information found in major dictionaries of Russian. The database facilitates search queries for aspectual pairs, allows the user to check for the existence of variants, provides information about the conjugation type of each verb, and helps the user track possible connections between the semantic class of the verb and other parameters. Citations of verb frequency and a tagging system help the learner orient to peculiarities of usage. A convenient navigation system, the option of sorting results and the completeness of the available information make the database a unique tool for verifying facts crucial to creation of grammatical exercises for learners of Russian.
We hope that you will find the database useful in your research and teaching. Please let us know about any website errors.

CLEAR GROUP (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian),
University of Tromsø,
Norway