Abstract
Naturalistic observation of child-parent interaction is used for investigating the early temporal and aspectual morphology in four monolingual Russian-speaking children (ages 1;6-2;11). The analysis of data obtained in weekly videotaped session shows early mastery of all tenses as well as grammatical aspect at an early age. This point has been a topic of debate in the acquisition literature since at least the early 1960s. The participants produced a full range of verb types in all the tenses even at the youngest age. In this respect, my findings closely parallel those of Weist, Wysocka, Witkowska-Stadnik, Buczowska, and Konieczna (1984) for child Polish. I found both telic and atelic verbs in the past tense in both perfective and imperfective aspects. I also found "aspectual pairs" of the same verb used in the correct circumstances. This lends further support to children's early understanding of aspectual differences. In addition, a developmental trend was found in children's production of verbs in the imperfective aspect. The percentage of imperfectives is typically the highest in the oldest children.
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