Performative Use of the Verbs prosit′/poprosit′ and molja/pomolja in Russian and Bulgarian: The Pragmatics of Aspect and Tense

In this article, I examine the illocutionary potential of some directives in Russian and Bulgarian in terms of categories of politeness and interpersonal distance. I show that the interplay between tense and aspect parameters of Russian performative verb pair prosit′/poprosit′ and respective Bulgarian pair molja/pomolja serves a wide range of pragmatic functions. Compared with other directives the analyzed verbs can be considered pragmatically most intensive, as they assume a greater number of situations and contexts in which a management of the interpersonal distance between the interlocutors is necessary.