Narratives are often said to be constructed on two planes: the plane of actions and the plane of viewpoint, which motivates actions in terms of the protagonists’ knowledge and feelings (Bruner 1986, 1990; Ochs and Capps 1996; Berman and Slobin 1994). Expressions of viewpoint serve to reconcile between what is expected and the actual sequence of events. Linguistically, constructing viewpoint may involve aspectual and tense choice, as well as usage of cognition and perception verbs and negative constructions.
Much of the Russian Primary Chronicle material consists of action sequences; cognition verbs appear rarely. However, some intervals, long recognized as narratives embedded in the chronicle, display a more complex linguistic picture. In this paper I will analyze the embedded story of the Blinding of Vasilko, told by one Vasilii. I will show how the frequent appearance of cognition verbs and negative constructions serves to represent the tension between point of view of the narrator and that of text-internal agents.