Aspectual properties of Ukrainian verbal action nouns

This article presents research conducted on aspectual semantics in verbal nouns expressing action or state. The state of the art in the paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic status of Ukrainian verbal action nouns has been analyzed. A quantitative formal and semantic analysis has been undertaken to study a corpus of Ukrainian verbal nouns selected from the largest available dictionary of the Ukrainian language using a continuous sampling method and supported by a sampling of artistic texts, mass media and the Internet; a linguistic survey revealed the ways native speakers perceive the aspectual properties of the action nouns. Almost half of Ukrainian verbal nouns have preserved aspectual verbal pairs. Members of such pairs inherit verbal aspectual attributes: this specifically applies to those nouns that have retained formal markers of the aspect. The research demonstrates that Ukrainian native speakers clearly differentiate the members of the prefixal registered pairs; whereas functional differences between those verbal nouns that are marked with an imperfect suffix present/absent were less pronounced. The aspectual specificity of the Ukrainian verbal nouns of action is partially affected by transposition suffixes. The Ukrainian verbal noun demonstrates a distinctly defined tendency towards aspectual differentiation in real speech, which in itself is an important specific component endowing a divergent quality to the Ukrainian grammar system against the background of other Slavic languages.