General Yes-No Questions and Verbal Aspect in Russian

Abstract

General (or existential) yes-no questions are considered to be the typical context for the so-called general-factual (obšèefaktièeskoe) meaning of the imperfective aspect. If the imperfective aspect is used in its general-factual meaning in general yes-no questions such as Vasja ran´še perevodil etot tekst? ‘Has Vasja translated this text before?’, the question seeks to clarify whether there has been at least one such situation in which the given text was translated by Vasja. In this case the description of the situation has the status of non-referential indefiniteness: Has there been at least one such situation as X? It will be shown that general yes-no questions in the imperfective aspect completely analogous to general yes-no questions in the perfective aspect can also be related to an individualized situation, that is, to a situation that the speaker assumes to be known to the addressee. Vasja perevel/perevodil tekst, kotoryj emu dali? On zametil, èto ne chvataet dvuch stranic? ‘Did Vasja translate the text given to him? Did he notice that two pages are missing?’ In this case the description of the situation in both aspects, in the perfective aspect as well in the imperfective aspect, has the status of referential definiteness: Did the situation X take place? The aim of the article is to describe the conditions that determine whether a general yes-no question in the imperfective aspect is related to a general or to an individualized situation.