Aspect and Meaning in the Russian Future Tense: Corpus and Experimental Investigations

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the Russian future tense within the framework of cognitive linguistics. In this dissertation I focus on the distribution of the perfective and imperfective future forms, their future and non-future meanings, and the use of the future tense verb forms by both native and non-native speakers. In the Russian tense-aspect system, it is reasonable to operate with markedness on a local level of tense, rather than the level of the verb. Via local markedness it is possible to see that the perfective future is the unmarked member of the opposition, and the imperfective future is the marked one. The perfective future tense forms are approximately fourteen times more frequent than imperfective future tense forms in the Russian National Corpus. Both perfective and imperfective future tense forms express not only future meanings but also gnomic, directive etc. The (non-)future meanings form a radial category with the future meaning as a prototype and other meanings as extensions. Native speakers operate with frequency when they use future tense forms. Non-native speakers are not sensitive to frequency, and instruction in the use of the future tense forms in Russian could be improved.