Expression of Types of Aktionsart in Russian and Romanian Languages

The lexical category of Aktionsart belongs to the universal category of aspectuality. It encompasses semantic groups of verbs and, to some extent, word formation, demarcated through the commonality of the type of action unfolding. To express various types of Aktionsart, the Russian language typically employs prefixes, which, in Slavic languages, have two meanings: lexical and grammatical. These aspects determine two functions: derivational and perfective (which changes the grammatical category of the verbal aspect from imperfective to perfective). The Romanian language expresses numerous types of Aktionsart, most often through lexico-grammatical means (such as adverbs, adverbial phrases, prepositions, adjectives, etc.). This difference arises from the predominantly synthetic structure of Russian and the analytic-synthetic structure of Romanian. Consequently, in most cases, a Russian verb with a prefix has two or more corresponding Romanian lexemes.