On the Basic Problems of the Category of Aktionsart in the Russian Language

Abstract

The article summarizes the basic questions of aktionsart (the status, content, and borders of the category) in the Russian language and describes the most relevant views on the problem. In the author’s opinion, the category of aktionsart is a semantic-word formation category, one that includes motivated verbs with formal markers of semantic change of the base verb, except for verbs of motion. Taking into consideration that word formation models are polysemic, the verb classes of aktionsart can be specified not by formal factors but by semantic ones. Consequently, the content of the category of aktionsart is determined by word formation and semantics together. Another key problem is the connection between the category of aktionsart and category of grammatical aspect and the sphere of word formation. The author joins the opinion of those linguists who consider aktionsart to be the lexical level of the macrocategory of aspect. The category of aktionsart is separated from the sphere of word formation by the regularity of verb formation. Regarding this criteria, as the author suggests, some verb formation models of low regularity should not be acknowledged as verb classes of aktionsart.