Research

General characterization of my field of research: Semantics of verbal categories in Slavic with special focus on the interaction with particles and conjunctions.

     A central interest of mine has always been the category of aspect in Russian. My present general theoretical views on this subject are reflected in (1995a) and (1998b). The articles (1992), (1994) and (1997) contain a detailed analysis of a case of "aspectual synonymy": the use of the aspects in contexts of delimited repetition.
     These articles reflect my conviction, that a proper understanding of linguistic categories as 'Aspect', 'Tense' and 'Modality' can be attained only on the basis of a thorough and detailed study of the uses of the relevant forms in various contexts. In choosing such a  data-oriented approach to linguistic analysis I am clearly influenced by my teacher Carl Ebeling. This approach isalready manifest in my earliest articles, for instance in my work on the interaction of Tense and Aspect with the conjunction poka ((1973b), (1979a), (1980b), (1983)). In this period the examples had to be collected mostly "by hand", but as soon as it became possible I began to produce and collect electronic corpora of texts which could be searched by concordance programs.
     In studying temporal phenomena, I am mainly occupied with the field of 'Taxis' - the expression of temporal relations between the situations described in the text. This is reflected in my work on the use of gerunds (1988), cases of 'relative tense' ((1995b), (1996) and (2001)) and the semantics of temporal connectives. My more recent work on temporal connectives is characterized by a contrastive approach, using data from different languages. In (1999a) Russian conjunctions of anteriority are contrasted with their counterparts in English and in (1999b) with Dutch. In (2006a) I compare English till/until with its equivalents in Russian and Polish. In (2006a) and (2006b) the "delimiting conjunctions" of Russian, Polish and Serbian are compared. As part of a project initiated by the Institute of linguistic research of the Russian Academy of Sciences I wrote a comprehensive account of taxis in Dutch (2009).
     As a result of my work on temporal connectives and relative tense I developed a special interest for the various constructions of 'verbs of waiting/expectation' (Russian ždat' and its derivations) ((1980a), (1980b), (1981), (1998a)). The last mentioned article is a first attempt of mine to study diachronic variation on the basis of the analysis of a considerable number of (electronic) texts from the first half of the 19th to the second half of the 20th century. A comparable diachronical investigation is (2003a) in which I study changes in the use of different adhortative expressions in Russian over the lasttwocenturies.
     In (1998b) I made some preliminary notes on comparative Slavic aspectology. This interest is reflected also in (2002),where the use of the specific perfective modal verbs smoč' and sumet' ('to be able to') of modern Russian is compared with equivalent constructions in some other Slavic languages. More recently (2008a) I studied the differences between the Slavic languages in choosing aspect in compound sentences expressing repeated past consecutive events. It is my conviction that at the present stage of the study of Slavic Aspect such contrastive work is highly necessary, in view of various interesting differences between particular groups of the Slavic languages. I cooperate with colleagues from the Chair of Slavic linguistics in the framework of an ACLC researchgroup on comparative Slavic aspectology. Here the emphasis lies on Russian, Polish, Czech and Serbian/Croatian. For this type of research we expect to find valuable material in parallel texts in the various Slavic languages. Therefore I spend considerable effort and time on the development of this corpus ( ASPAC = Amsterdam Slavic Parallel Aligned Corpus).

Publications (in reversed chronological order)

2009       "Taksis v niderlandskom jazyke" ["Taxis in Dutch"], Tipologija taksisnyx konstrukcij [ Typology of Taxis Constructions ] (ed. V.S. Xrakovskij), 269-366. Moskva: Znak

2008a       "Vyraženie posledovatel'nosti dejstvij pri povtorjaemosti v prošlom v sovremennyx slavjanskix jazykax" ["The expression of repeated past consecutive events in the modern Slavic languages"], Dutch Contributions to the Fourteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid, September 10-16. Linguistics (eds. Peter Houtzagers, Janneke Kalsbeek, Jos Schaeken) (= SSGL 34), 1-36. Amsterdam - New York: Rodopi.

2008b        "O konstrukcijax pri glagolax vosprijatija vrazličnyxevropejskix jazykax (na osnove perevodov Novogo Zaveta)" ["On constructions with perception verbs in various European languages (on the basis of translations of the New Testament)", Literature and beyond. Festschrift for Willem G. Weststeijn on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Volume I (eds. Eric de Haard, Wim Honselaar, Jenny Stelleman) (= Pegasus Oost-Europese Studies 11-I), 103-134. Amsterdam.

2008c         "O sopostavitel'nom izučenii ograničitel'nyx sojuzov slavjanskix jazykov" ["On the contrastive analysis of delimiting conjunctions of the Slavic languages"], Evidence and Counter-Evidence. Essays in honour of Frederik Kortlandt. Volume 1: Balto-Slavic and Indo-European Linguistics (eds. Alexander Lubotzky, Jos Schae-ken, Jeroen Wiedenhof) (= SSGL 32), 23-43. Amsterdam - NewYork: Rodopi. 

2007        "Ob ograničitel'nyx vremennyx sojuzax v serbskom, russkom i pol'skom jazykax" ["On temporal conjunctions with a delimiting meaning in Serbian, Russian and Polish"], Zbornik Matice srpske za slavistiku 71-72, 237-253.   [PDF-file on texts page]  

2006a      "O pol'skix i russkix sootvetstvijax anglijskogo sojuza till/until" ["On Polish and Russian equivalents of the English conjunction till/until"], Od fonemu do tekstu, Prace dedykowane Profesorowi Romanowi Laskowskiemu (pod redakcją Ireneusza Bobrowskiego i Krystyny Kowalik), 65-80. Kraków: Lexis.

2006b      "Over constructies met Laat ik.. . of Laat mij... en hun Russische tegenhangers", De taal van Peter de Grote. Russisch-Nederlandse contacten en contrasten (red. Emmanuel Waegemans), 69-86. Leuven / Voorburg: Acco.

2006c    "K voprosu o vidovoj oppozicii v konstrukcijax tipa daj pomogu - davaj pomogu " ["On theproblem of the aspectual opposition in constructions of the type daj pomogu - davaj pomogu ('let me help')"], Glagol'nyj vid i leksikografija. Semantika i struktura slavjanskogo vida IV (ed. Volkmar Lehmann) (= Slavolinguistica 7), 37-66. München: Otto Sagner.

2004      "O formal'no markirovannyx vyraženijax prizyva k sovmestnomu dejstviju v russkix tekstax poslednix dvux stoletij" ["On formally marked expressions with 1st person plural imperative semantics in Russian texts of the last two centuries"], Russkij jazyk: istoričeskie sud'by i sovremennost'. II Meždunarodnyj kongress issledovatelej russkogo jazyka. Trudy i materialy , 211-212. Moskva: Izd. Moskovskogo universiteta.

2003а      "O nekotoryx izmenenijax v upotreblenii vyraženij prizyva k sovmestnomu dejstviju v russkix tekstax poslednixdvux stoletij" ["On some changes in the use of expressions with 1st person plural imperative semantics in Russian texts of the last two centuries"], Time flies. Festschrift for William Veder , Pegasus Oost-Europese Studies 2, 13-40. Amsterdam.   [PDF-file on texts page]  

2003b      "O pobuditel'nyx konstrukcijax s ispolnitelem 1-go lica" ["On adhortative constructions with a 1st person agent"], Dutch Contributions to the Thirteenth International Congress of Slavists (SSGL 30), 1-33. Amsterdam - New York: Rodopi.    [PDF-file on texts page]

2003c      Various parts of the Russische grammatica (Peter Houtzagers, red.). Bussum: Coutinho; "De betekenis van het werkwoordsaspect",369-397 (additional parts on CD-ROM); "De werkwoorden van beweging", 399-424; "Aspectkeuze in de verleden tijd", 426-438; "Het gebruik van het gerundium", CD-ROM; "Het gebruik van de gebiedende wijs", 459-472 (additional parts on CD-ROM).

2002      "O russkix glagolax smoč' i sumet' " ["On the Russian verbs smoč' and sumet' ('to be able to')"], Osnovnye problemy russkoj aspektologii [Basic problems of Russian aspectology] (red. V.V. Ivanickij i dr.), 7-29. Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka.

2001      "O taksisnyx otnošenijax v složnopodčinennyx predloženijax s glagolami vosprijatija" ["On taxis relations in compound sentences with perception verbs"], Functional Grammar: Aspect and Aspectuality. Tense and Temporality. (Essays in Honour of Alexander Bondarko) (Ed.s Adrian Barentsen, Youri Poupynin), 1-22. LINCOM Europa.

1999a      (together with Youri Poupynin) "O sojuzax predšestvovanija v russkom i anglijskom jazykax" ["On conjunctions of anteriority in Russian and English"], Semantyka a konfrontacja językowa 2 (red. Zbigniew Greń & Violetta Koseska-Toszewa), 105-122. Warszawa: Slawistyczny ośrodek wydawniczy.

1999b      "Over conjuncties van anterioriteit in het Nederlands en het Russisch", Taal en cultuur. Lezingen van de conferentie "België-Nederland-Rusland" (red. Peter van Nunen & Arkadi Semjonov), 239-282. Moskva: Nauka.

1998a      "Ob iz"jasnitel'nyx pridatočnyx predloženijax pri glagolax ožidanija (s nekotorymi rezul'tatami issledovanija komp'juternyx korpusov russkix tekstov 19-go i 20-go vv." ["On explanatory sentences after verbs of waiting or expectation (with some results of the investigation of computer corpora of Russian texts ofthe 19th and 20th century"], Dutch Contributions to the Twelfth International Congress of Slavists, Linguistics (= SSGL 24), 1-42. Amsterdam - Atlanta: Rodopi.

1998b      "Priznak «sekventnaja svjaz'» i vidovoe protivopostavlenie v russkomjazyke" (["The feature 'sequential connection' and theaspectual opposition in Russian"], Tipologija vida. Problemy, poiski, rešenija (red. M.Ju. Čertkova), 43-58. Moskva: Škola «Jazyki russkoj kul'tury».   [PDF-file on texts page]  

1997      "Rol' leksičeskogo značenija glagola pri vybore vida v kontekste ograničennoj kratnosti" ["The role of the lexical meaning of the verb in choosing the verbal aspect in contexts of limited repetition"], Semantika i struktura slavjanskogo glagol'nogo vida  2 , 1-30. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe WSP.

1996     "Shifting points of orientation in Modern Russian. Tense selectionin 'reportedperception'", Reported speech: Forms and functions of the verb (eds. Theo Janssen & Wim van der Wurff), 15-55. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

1995a      "Trexstupenčataja model'invarianta soveršennogo vida v russkom jazyke" ["A three-level model of the invariant meaning of the perfective aspect in Russian"], Semantika i struktura slavjanskogo glagol'nogo vida 1 , 1-26. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe WSP.   [PDF-file on texts page]  

1995b      "Constructies met werkwoorden van perceptie in het Nederlands en het Russisch. (Elementen van een contrastieve analyse)", Jazyki i kul'tury. Materialy konferencii: Rossija, Bel'gija, Niderlandy , 63-90. Moskva: VCP.

1994      "Ob obstojatel'stvax ograničennoj kratnosti dejstvija v russkom jazyke. Čast' 2" ["On adverbial expressions of limited repetition of the verbal action in Russian. Part 2"), Dutch Contributionsto the Eleventh International Congress of Slavists, Linguistics (= SSGL 22), 1-50. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1992      "Ob obstojatel'stvax ograničennoj kratnosti dejstvija v russkom jazyke. Čast' 1" ("On adverbial expressions of limitedrepetition of the verbal action in Russian. Part 1"], Studies in Russian Linguistics (= SSGL 17), 1-66. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1988      (Together with J.H. Hindriks) "Deepričastie i soveršennyj vid v sovremennom russkom literaturnom jazyke" ["The perfective adverbial participle in modern literary Russian"], Dutch Contributions to the Tenth International Congress of Slavists, Linguistics (= SSGL 11), 1-40. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1986      "The use of the particle bylo in Modern Russian", Dutch Studies in Russian Linguistics (= SSGL 8), 1-68. Amsterdam:Rodopi.   [PDF-file on texts page]

1985      Dissertation: 'Aspect', 'Tijd' en de conjunctie POKA. (Over betekenis en gebruik van enkele vormen in het moderne Russisch.) Amsterdam.

1984      "Notes on 'praesens pro futuro' in modern Russian", Signs of Friendship. To Honour A.G.F. van Holk, Slavist, Linguist, Semiotician , 29-54. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1983      "O xaraktere vremennyx form s èlementom bud- i ix funkcionirovanii v složnyx predloženijax s sojuzom poka" ["On the character of the temporal forms with the element bud- and their functioning in compound sentences with the conjunction poka"], Dutch Contributions to the Ninth International Congress of Slavists, Linguistics (= SSGL 3), 1-35. Amsterdam: Rodopi.   [PDF-file on texts page]

1981      "De werkwoorden van"wachten" in het Russisch", Handelingen van het zes-en-dertigste Nederlands filologencongres , 239-248. Amsterdam: Holland University Press.

1980a      "Ob"ektnye padeži pri glagole ždat'" ["Object cases after the verb ždat' ('to wait')"], Voz'mi na radost'. - To honour Jeanne van der Eng-Liedmeier ,343-360. Amsterdam.

1980b      "Ob osobennostjax upotreblenijasojuza poka pri glagolax ožidanija" ["On specific details of the use of the conjunction poka with verbs of waiting/expectation"], Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics 1 , 17-68. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

1979a      "Nabljudenija nad funkcionirovaniem sojuza poka" ["Observations on the functioning of the conjunction poka"], Dutch Contributions to the Eighth International Congress of Slavists , 57-159. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.

1979b      Review: N.B. Thelin: Towards a theory of aspect, tense and actionality in Slavic . (Uppsala 1978). Lingua 49,268-282.

1974      Review: L. Johanson: Aspekt im Türkischen . (Uppsala 1971). Lingua 33, 383-388.

1973a      "K opisaniju semantiki kategorij 'Vid' i 'Vremja' (Na materiale sovremennogo russkogo literaturnogo jazyka)" ["On describing the semantics of the categories 'Aspect' and 'Tense' (On the basis of modern literary Russian)"], Tijdschrift voor Slavische taal- en letterkunde 2 , 5-32.

1973b      "'Vid' i 'Vremja' v predloženijax, soderžaščix slovo poka" ["'Aspect' and 'Tense' in sentences containing the word poka"], Dutch Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists , 33-94. The Hague-Paris: Mouton.

• List of publcations with cyrillic

An extensive account of the Russian modal particle BYLO (in English)

   In this PDF-version the printing errors have been removed.

• Barentsen 1986 (pdf)

An early paper on the semantics of ipf future

• Barentsen 1983 (pdf)

A comprehensive account (in Russian) of my views on the semantics of Russian aspect:

• Barentsen 1995a (pdf)

• Barentsen 1998b (pdf)

Two articles on adhortative constructions:

• Barentsen 2003a (pdf)

• Barentsen 2003b (pdf)

Contrastive study of delimiting temporal conjunctions:

    Pdf-file of my article (in Russian) in a Serbian journal, with corrections in the tables.

• Barentsen 2007 (pdf)

Information on ASPAC - Amsterdam Slavic Parallel Aligned Corpus

General remarks

        The Amsterdam Slavic Parallel Aligned Corpus (ASPAC) is being compiled to provide material for research in the field of Slavic contrastive linguistics. It contains parallel texts in Russian and at least one other contemporary Slavic language and usually also one or more of the other European languages (Germanic/Romance).

     At present texts in the following languages are represented:

Bold print indicates languages that arerepresented with at least one non-translated text.

*Texts in Latin, Romanian, Modern Greek, Lower-Sorbian and Molise Slavic are not included in the main table of the distribution of the texts but only in the table with additional versions.

     The Slavic languages best represented in the corpus are Russian, Polish, Czech and Serbian/Croation (all of them studied at Amsterdam University). But it is our aim to represent a given text in as much languages as possible. Obviously, there are some clear limits to this, as only rarely texts are translated in all Slavic languages. Therefore only one text - Le Petit Pri nce by De Saint-Exupéry - is represented in all 14 languages indicated above. In other cases Lower-Sorbian and Molise-Slavic are not represented at all.

     The other languages are mostly represented by more than 10 texts each. The main exception is Upper-Sorbian with only 4 texts (by Adams, De Saint-Exupéry, Milne and Ostrovskij).

     At present texts by 45 different authors are included. Some of these authors are represented by more than one text. Large texts are usually split in two or more parts.

     The main part of the present material consists of translations into Slavic from non-Slavic languages (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French and Italian). For reasons of comparison a number of con-temporary translations into Latin,Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Modern Greek have also been included. Because it is rather difficult to find translations from a Slavic language into a sufficient number of other Slavic languages, the number of such texts is still rather modest.

     All present texts have a narrative character (novels, stories, diaries etc.). A relatively large part consists of classics of children's literature. An advantage of these texts is the fact that they are widely available and often are translated more than once, by different translators. When possible such alternative translations are included in the corpus. (For instance, of Carroll's classic Adventures of Alice in Wonderland six different Russian translations are included.) 

     Originally a considerable number of texts have been found in various resources on the Inter-net. By now a growing number is obtained by way of OCR (using the program Fine-Reader ). I hereby express my great gratitude to all colleagues and friends who have helped me in obtaining texts and some-times at various stages of processing them (scanning, OCR, spell-checking, alignment).

     All texts are in (extended-)ASCII format ("encoded text"). They have all been aligned, usually on the level of paragraphs. Paragraphs longer than about five lines have usually been broken down into smaller parts. The alignment has been done manually (using the program Ultra-Edit ). To obtain some uniformity some minor adjustments have been made, e.g. the various kinds of quotationmarks have been unified into straight upperquotes (' and "). Indentation at the beginning of paragraphs is made by five spaces. Usually italics used for emphasis in the original text are replaced by capitals.

     Because of this plain text formatting it should not be difficult to use the texts   in various text-analysis programs. For my own research I use Michael Barlow's program ParaConc , that allows to compare collections of texts in four different languages simultaneously.

     It must be emphasized that the material is explicitly meant to be used only for purposes of linguistically oriented research. Any distribution for other purposes is strictly forbidden. Researchers that would like to use (parts of) the corpus are invited to contact me by e-mail.

     The material is constantly improved and extended. Updates are indicated on this page, at least once a month. Researchers using the material are kindly requested to report any mistakes or irregularities in the texts.

     It would be highly appreciated when help is provided in finding texts that are still lacking. (Any form of text is gladly accepted,   from electronic texts to photocopies.) To notice which parts are really missing, the table of the distributiont of the text in the corpus indicates also the presence of sourcematerial that has not yet been fully processed.

Link to Authors, texts and translators

• Authors, texts and translators (PDF)

Link to table with the distribution of the texts

• Distribution of the texts (PDF)

Texts added in 2010

31-01-10          Verne_80_Cz

19-02-10          Bulgakov/ MM1_Sk, MM2_Sk

20-02-10          Andrí ć /Drina_SbL; Andri ć /Drina_R

04-03-10         Hemingway/ Old_Bg

05-03-10          Doyle/ Hound_Bg

07-03-10          Carroll/ Al_Sw

27-06-10          Ostrovskij/ KZS_1_R; KZS_1_SbC; KZS_1_BR.

02-07-10          KZS_ 1_ Uk

04-07-10          Lindgren/ Karls_1_Sw; Karls_1_R

хх-07-10          Karls_1_BR; Karls_1_Uk; Karls_1_D

хх-07-10          Exupery/Prince_MSl; А ndrić/Drina_Mc

xx-07-10          KZS_1_Bg; KZS_1_Cz; KZS_1_P

xx-08-10          KZS_1_E

xx-08-10          KZS_2_R; KZS_2_Sbc; KZS_2_P; KZS_2_Cz

21-08-10          KZS_1_D

23-08-10          Milne/P_BR

xx_11-10          KZS_1_Sk; KZS_1_Sn; KZS_1_Mc; KZS_2a_BR

18-11-10          Adams/Guide_E; Guide_R_F

20-11-10          KZS_1_G

21-11-10          Guide_Sbl

22-11-10          Guide_Bg

23-11-10          Prince_LS

01-12-10          Guide_US; Guide_Uk

08-12-10         Guide_R_A

14-12-10         KZS_2_US

19-12-10        Guide_P

23-12-10        KZS_2_Sn

27-12-10        Guide_Cz

27-12-10        Guide_Sk

31-12-10        Guide_R_P; Guide_R_Sh

Corrections made in 2010

31-01-10     Verne_80_R     Дуды > Ауды

19-02-10     MM1_D      : vraagje > vraag je; MM2_D: uitje > uit, je; sneue : snelle

02-07-10     IP12:   Нока > По ка

20-11-10     KZS_1_R: Валюта > Ва л юша    

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