General Effective Aktionsart in the Modern Ossetian Language (Compared with Russian)

Abstract

 In the functional-semantic field of aspectuality in the modern Ossetian language, one of its most actionally expressive components is effective Aktionsarten: general effective and special effective. This paper studied verbs with the fæ- prefix, which marks, along with special effective Aktionsarten, verbs of general effective Aktionsarten. The most productive in the formation of the latter in the Ossetian language, just like in Russian, are telic verbs of certain lexico-semantic groups that form variants of the general effective Aktionsart. Verbs with the fæ- prefix have a richer palette of actional shades than verbs with other prefixes, deriving effective Aktionsarten from both telic and atelic verbs. In addition, prefixed forms with fæ- act as functional translation equivalents of Russian verbs containing the idea of effectiveness in certain aspectual and aspectual-temporal forms, namely: in the perfective subtype of the generalized-actual type of use of the imperfective aspect; in the total subtype of the concrete-actual type of use of the perfective aspect; in the present tense in the meaning of irrelevant abstract tense, in the descriptive and commenting subtypes, as well as in the meaning of habituality/usuality. A comparison of all types of use of Ossetian verbs with the fæ- prefix with their Russian translations and functional translation equivalents reveals a similar perception of the same facts of objective reality by speakers of the two languages. In addition, it allows us to establish differences in describing the progression and distribution of an effective action in time and, thereby, fill in some gaps in the comparative Ossetian-Russian aspectology