5. The conceptualisation of remembering and forgetting in Russian

The paper deals with the reconstruction of the Russian linguistic model of the memory by means of semantic analysis of Russian verbs denoting mental states of remembering and forgetting . In general, the semantics of Russian remembering/ forgetting verbs is structured by the analogy with the sphere of posessing/losing. In particular, the semantic analysis of Russian memory verbs provides evidence for differentiation of experiential and informational memory. The Russian verbzabyt’ (‘to forget’) demonstrates some striking peculiarities of aspectual behaviour which result from its semantics. In Russian there are at least three different ways of conceptualization of forgetting , the main of them being “the covering with something like mist, which gradually becomes more and more opaque”, which is present in the verb zabyt’ itself.