Aspectual commentary in the typology of interpretations of the explanatory dictionary and educational dictionary of the RFL

Many foreign and Russian linguists (including the syntaxists of the so-called Vinogradov’s school) consider the Russian sentence to be verbocentric, because the verb supports many syntactic structures of both simple and complex sentences. That is why all types of studies on different aspects of this grammatical category are so important in the process of teaching foreign students, including aspect formation, meaning and use of the aspect pair (both categorical and pragmatic), its semantic and syntactic compatibility with left and right actants. As a rule, foreign students studying Russian as a Foreign Language (RFL) in Russia and outside the language environment have at their disposal different types of dictionaries, and our aim is to trace what opportunities these dictionaries provide for mastering the verbal word’s use in modern discourse. In other words, how much aspectual information they contain, how adequate it is to the current state of the language, and how much it contributes to the free participation of a foreigner in various discursive processes, both oral and written. The types of dictionaries which foreign students most often deal with – explanatory and educational ones of various directions – are considered. Aspectual verbal characteristics of these dictionaries are analyzed in three perspectives: 1) content; 2) structurе; 3) sign marking. The dictionary dignities are revealed as well as some drawbacks, preventing the international students from free orienteering in the dictionary entries of the Russian Verbs, from becoming aware of Aspectual peculiarities of Russian Sentences with Verbal Predicates and finally from adequate using the Aspect Forms in discourse. Controversial issues of interpretation of verbs are estimated, options for their solution are proposed. As a result of the study: 1) the necessity of ordering and expanding the aspectual information of the dictionary is proved; 2) a different type of verb semantics expounding is proposed, depending on the type of linguistic meaning; 3) the directions of changes and practical materials for Aspectual Commentary of Verbal entries, first of all, of the RFL educational dictionaries, have been developed.

Russian as a Foreign Language, educational dictionary, aspectual commentary, ordering and expansion