VERB CHOICE IN COMPETITION OF ASPECTUAL MODUS MEANINGS

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The paper deals with the problem of verb choice in potential aspectual competition. The analysis of the most popular interpretations of invariant aspectual meanings suggests that the Imperfective Aspect defines an action itself while the Perfective Aspect defines the action’s limit. If this hypothesis is correct, the opposition of an action and the action’s limit is supposed to stay relevant in any contexts even in case of competition of aspectual modus meanings. Such contexts are considered as a field where verb aspect conveys more distinctive nuance of the action compared to the traditional particular aspectual meanings. However, in such cases verb choice is to be motivated by invariant aspectual meanings as verb choice in any other context. To verify this hypothesis we have conducted an experiment that aimed to identify the rules of the verb choice in potential aspectual competition. The paper considers the results of the part of the experiment that was dedicated to modus meanings. Results of the experiment proved that the opposition of the action and the action’s limit is relevant for Russian native speakers even in case of competition of aspectual modus meanings.