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This database contains information on 1,981 imperfective verbs in Russian that form aspectual pairs via prefixation. This list is an aggregation of entries found in Malyj Akademičeskij Slovar’ (Evgen’eva, A. P., ed. 1999. Moscow: Russkij jazyk), Slovar’ russkogo jazyka (Ožegov, S. I. and N. Ju. Švedova. 2001. Moscow: Russkij jazyk), and Cubberly (Cubberly, Paul V. 1982. “On the ‘empty’ prefixes in Russian.” Russian Language Journal 36: 14-30). This database includes all prefixal pairs culled from these sources and acknowledged by a panel of native speakers (Olga Lyashevskaya, Julia Kuznetsova, Svetlana Sokolova, and Anastasia Makarova). This database cites the verbs, their aspect, the prefixes that they use to form aspectual pairs, variation in prefixes, the morphological and semantic classes of the verbs, their frequency, the definitions of the verbs, and which of the three sources they are listed in. All of these terms and how they can be used for searches are described in more detail below.
NOTE: This database contains only verbs that form aspectual pairs (with the same lexical meaning) via prefixation, also known as verbs with Natural Perfectives (see Janda, Laura A. 2007. “Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs.” Studies in Language 31, 607-648). This database thus contains aspectual pairs such as delat’[imperfective]/sdelat’[perfective] ‘do’ and pisat’[imperfective]/napisat’[perfective] ‘write’. It does not contain prefixed perfectives such as peredelat’ ‘redo’ or popisat’ ‘write for a while’ (also known as Specialized and Complex Act Perfectives; cf. Janda 2007).
Show on screen: This column gives the user the option of choosing which parameters will be displayed in the search results. All nine parameters can be displayed, or the user can choose to display any subset. Any item that is checked will be displayed.
Parameters: These are the parameters that can be displayed (see explanations below).
Settings: The user can limit the search according to various values for the parameters (see explanations below).
Each of the search terms is described in detail below. Search terms are accompanied by a box that can be checked, a menu, and a field where text can be entered. When the box is checked, the results for the given parameter will be displayed. The top item in each menu is “all”; selecting “all” will yield all results for the given parameter, whereas any other selection will limit the results. The fields give the user the opportunity to specify certain items. Note that “*” can be used as a “wild card”, indicating that any string containing the letters before or after “*” will be searched for.
verb: When this parameter is checked, all verbs (both prefixed and unprefixed) will be listed in the search results. There is also a field where the user can enter exact infinitival forms (in Cyrillic) to find specific verbs.
aspect: The menu allows the user to select either imperfective or perfective or both aspects.
prefix: This menu allows the user to narrow the search to a given prefix. For example, if the prefix из is selected, the search results will display all and only the verbs that perfectivize with the prefix из.
variation: Many Russian imperfective verbs use more than one prefix in order to form an aspectual partner. Some verbs use two, three, four, five or even six prefixes for this purpose. When a verb uses two or more prefixes to form its perfective partner(s), we call this prefix “variation”. When this parameter is checked, the search results will show what variation is present. The menu allows the user to select how many prefixes to show, and they can subsequently be sorted using the sorting function described below.
morphological class: This parameter refers to the classification of verbs in Grammatičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka (Zaliznjak, A. 1980. Moscow: Russkij jazyk), and is aimed at advanced users who are familiar with that classification system. When this parameter is checked, the search results will identify the morphological class of each verb. The menu allows the user to select for specific morphological classes as well (for example, *11b*).
semantic class: This parameter refers to the classification of verbs according to the Russian National Corpus (http://ruscorpora.ru/corpora-sem.html). When this parameter is checked, the search results will identify the semantic class of each verb. The menu allows the user to select for specific semantic classes as well.
frequency: This parameter refers to the frequency of each verb as listed in the Častotnyj slovar’ sovremennogo russkogo jazyka (Lyashevskaya, O. N. and S. A. Sharoff. forthcoming. Moscow: Azbukovnik). This frequency dictionary is based on a 92-million-word portion of the Russian National Corpus representing samples from 1950-2007. When this parameter is checked, the search results will show the frequency of each verb. The search field makes it possible to search for verbs with a frequency equal to (=), greater than (>) or less than (<) a given number. Note that text in the field should be entered without any spaces (e.g., as “>100” to search for verbs with a frequency of more than 100).
definition: This parameter refers to the definitions of verbs according to the Malyj Akademičeskij Slovar’ and Slovar’ russkogo jazyka. When this parameter is checked, the search results will show the definitions listed for each verb. For verbs that appear in both dictionaries, the definition from Slovar’ russkogo jazyka is the one that is displayed. The advanced used can enter words to be searched for in definitions (e.g., a search for *заставлять* ‘force’ will return all definitions that contain that word, thus displaying words with a causative meaning).
source: This parameter refers to the sources that the verbs have been collected from: Malyj Akademičeskij Slovar’, Slovar’ russkogo jazyka, and Cubberly’s list. When this parameter is checked, the search results will indicate the source for each verb.
Search: This button can be used to ask for search results after all the parameters have been set. In case one of the search parameters is specified, it is not necessary to check that item - it will be displayed automatically.
All verbs in the database: This button can be used to ask for a list of all verbs in the database, showing all the parameters that have been set. List of all verbs is accompanied by a column "Label", in which 275 verbs from the database are marked with a label. These labels are developed by the panel of native speakers mentioned above. The label signals that the aspectual pair functions as a pair only in professional or colloquial use (labels "professional" and "colloquial"). It can also mark that an aspectual pair functioned as a pair in the past, but in modern Russian this relationship can be characterized as obsolete (label "obsolete"). It is possible to sort by the label, and clicking on a label a user can get a list of all verbs with this label.
Clear search parameters: This button can be used to clear the search parameters.
Once a search has been performed, it is possible to click on various items and either sort them or receive further information.
Sorting: After a search has been performed, it is possible to click on the heading in each column of the results, and this will prompt the rearrangement of items returned according to ascending (alphabetic or numerical) order.
Lemmatizing: After a search has been performed, it is possible to click on any verb listed in the results and receive a complete paradigm for that verb.
Requesting verbs with a given prefix, variation, or semantic class: After a search has been performed, it is possible to click on any given prefix, prefix variation, or semantic class. This will yield a new set of search results displaying all verbs in the database with the given prefix, prefix variation, or semantic class.