Abstract
This paper continues a whole series of previous articles on the so-called Russian double verbs, but examines them for the first time on the basis of data from the Russian national corpus. It focuses on just one grammatical form out of the whole paradigm, viz. imperatives in the 2pl. Among the topics scrutinized and quantified are: the ratio of juxtaposition vs distant position(with one dividing element) of both verbs and of prototypical (asymmetric)vs non prototypical (symmetric) pairs, the inversion of V1 and V2, the scope of negation, pairs with mixed verbal aspect, the desemanticisation of V1, the historical rise of some V1 and decline of others. The results obtained by this research corroborate the overall picture drawn in our previous works, but provide significant new insights such as the overwhelming predominance of the prototype over symmetric pairs, exclusive negation of V2, prevailing distribution of ipf V1 + pf V in aspectually mixed pairs, etc.
Weiss, Daniel