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Abstract
Previous studies on verbal aspect have not paid sufficient attention to the functional differences between Russian perfective vs. imperfective verbs and converbs from a diachronic perspective. The aim of the present paper is to investigate them in terms of the parameters of “foreground vs. background”, which concerns, e.g., the position of direct speech constructions（ DSCs）. The latter are regarded as emotional and pragmatic turning points for the development of narration. Thus, DSCs are interpreted in our representation as a foreground and the rest of the text, as rather a background of narratives.
We analyze 34503 verbs（ 19179 perfectives and 15324 imperfectives） and 6870 converbs（ 2640 perfectives and 4230 imperfectives） from 16 Russian 19th - 20th century literary works. Our main point of interest was the position of those verb forms in relation to DSCs. Proposed below are our fi ndings regarding the frequency of use of the two types of verbs （perfectives or PVs, and imperfectives or IVs） and the two types of converbs （perfective or PCs, and imperfective or ICs）.
VERB: In the fi rst half of the 19th century, PVs and IVs were mostly used in positions separated from DSCs. In the second half of the 19th century, PVs do not show any preference as regards their position with respect to DSCs, while IVs mostly remain separated from DSCs. Both in the fi rst, and in the second half of the 20th century, PVs frequently occur close to DSCs, whereas IVs invariably take distant positions with respect to DSCs, this trend continuing until the end of the 20th century.
CONVERB: In the fi rst half of the 19th century, PCs are regularly found near DSCs, while ICs regularly prefer distant positions. The second half of the 19th century saw a change where the distance between PCs and DSCs shows ambivalence, while that between ICs and DSCs becomes rather close. In the fi rst half of the 20th century, PCs are preferentially located near DSCs, whereas in the late 20th century PCs take distant positions from DSCs. ICs, on the contrary, are consistently found in the vicinity of DSCs both in the fi rst and the second half of the 20th century.
In other words, in modern Russian literature, PVs and ICs become more relevant （as opposed to PСs） for foregrounded situations compared to classical works. IVs, in contrast, have invariably occupied distant positions.
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