ВЫРАЖЕНИЕ ЗНАЧЕНИЯ НАЧАЛА В РУССКОМ И ЯПОНСКОМ ЯЗЫКАХ ПО КНИГЕ ЮКИО МИСИМЫ ≪КИНКАКУДЗИ≫ (ЗОЛОТОЙ ХРАМ)

Discussing verbal aspectual systems in two largely differing languages such as Russian and Japanese, it is important to consider not only the possible "universal" features of aspectual semantics, but also the language-specific phenomena of particular semantics in one language or another. Based on W. von Humboldt's philosophy of "sprachliche Weltansicht" (jazykovaja kartina mira), we have applied the notion of semantic dominance (Paduceva 1996) to the functional-semantic category of aspect, and depicted the dominant features of such semantics in Russian and Japanese. This article offers a textual-analysis of the expression meaning 'BEGIN' in the original Japanese text of Y. Mishima's novel Kinkakuji and in its Russian translation by G. Chkhartishvili. Expressed in many different languages of the world (Maslov 1978), the semantics of 'BEGIN' can be regarded as an example of a "universally-shared" idea. Furthermore, with regard to aspectology, this particular semantics is rather important as one of the manifestations of the general concept 'limit' (predel), which it has been claimed deserves the status of semantic dominance in the Russian aspectual system (Petroukhina 2003). One of the typical realizations of semantic dominance is the relatively frequent and obligatory, therefore less intentional, usage of various means of expressing this dominant semantics. In Russian narrative texts, although the semantics of 'BEGIN' is clearly encoded in the lexical meanings of inchoative derivatives (zasagat') and in the analytical structures of phasal verbs such as nacat' or stat', their usage is often motivated not by their lexical need as such, but rather by the grammatical, aspectual necessity of bringing one of the limits of a situation into focus. The results of our research would suggest that this is true. The number of inchoatives used in the Russia n translation of the novel is, roughly speaking, four times that of the Japanese original (211:54). This means that quite a number of "non-inchoatives" used in the Japanese text have been interpreted as or "transformed" to inchoatives in the Russian text. This illustrates a dominant view of the Russian aspectual system, in which the notion of temporal limits features higher than other aspects of a situation. Possible "pseudo-inchoatives" in Japanese are also introduced.