“Rabotnul na slavu – gul’ni smelo!”: –NU- As a Universal Aspectual Marker in Non-standard Russian

Abstract

This article illustrates a strong tendency in modern non-standard Russian, where verbs bearing the semelfactive marker –nu- can perform various actional functions, ranging from semelfactives to Natural Perfectives and even delimitatives. The universal character of –nu- depends on the interaction of such factors as the semantics of the suffix, the semantics of the verbal stem, and constructions.