Russ Linguist (2016) 40:215–230 DOI 10.1007/s11185-016-9166-9 Aspectual triplets in Russian: semantic predictability and regularity Аспектуальные тройки в русском языке: семантика и системный подход Julia Kuznetsova 1 · Svetlana Sokolova 1 Published online: 3 October 2016 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract Russian verbs are considered to form aspectual pairs, perfective and imperfective. However, this system is complicated by the existence of so-called aspectual triplets, in which one perfective verb has two imperfective correlates (a primary imperfective and a secondary imperfective). This article offers new insights into the discussion of this controversial issue. While aspectual triplets have traditionally been treated as marginal, we present a systemic account of this phenomenon based on a corpus study of a comprehensive list of Russian aspectual triplets. In addition, contrary to some previous approaches, we propose unified semanticsforthesecondaryimperfectives,namely,atelicprocess.Weshowthatthemeaning of a secondary imperfective is the result of interaction among the meaning of the prefix, the meaning of the verbal stem, and the general semantics of the secondary imperfective. We argue that the secondary imperfective is marginal if the semantics of the prefix or the semantics of the verbal stem are not compatible with the notion of result. Аннотация Традиционно считается, что глаголы в русском языке образуют видовые пары, состоящие из глагола совершенного вида и глагола несовершенного вида. Од- нако эта система усложняется существованием так называемых аспектуальных троек, в которых один глагол совершенного вида соотносится с двумя глаголами несовер- шенного вида. В этой статье мы предлагаем новый подход к этой проблеме. В то время как видовые тройки обычно рассматриваются как маргинальное явление, мы представляем системный подход к этим глаголам, основанный на корпусном иссле- довании представительного списка русских видовых троек. Кроме того, в отличие We would like to thank all the members of the CLEAR Group at the University of Tromsø for their help and comments. This research was conducted within the ‘Exploring Emptiness’ project supported by the Norwegian Research Council. Versions of this paper were presented for the Cognitive Linguistics Reading Group at the University of Tromsø, at Saint-Petersburg State University in Russia, and at the Slavic Linguistic Society (SLS) Conference in Chicago in 2011. We are grateful to all the participants of these meetings for their comments and suggestions. B S. Sokolova svetlana.sokolova@uit.no J. Kuznetsova juliakzn@gmail.com 1 UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway