Linguistic analysis of the dispositions of typical continuing crimes

The study included a linguistic analysis of the terms escape, evasion, storage, bearing, desertion, occupation, non-disbursement, non-payment, organization and disorganization used in formulating the dispositions of the relevant articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and which are deverbatives, the so-called verbal nouns or verbal names of action. Limitativity, which characterizes the type of relation of an action to its limit, and phasing, as aspectual features of deverbatives that are significant for criminal legislation and the concept of continuing crimes, are investigated. A linguistic classification of substantive types of limit is given, understood as a spatial or temporal boundary of something, which can be expressed in the form of termination of the designated action, achievement of a certain target setting, or transition of the subject (or object) of the action to a new state. A characteristic is given for the term “inaction”, which is also a verbal noun. It is concluded that the linguistic aspect of the legislative construction of the elements of a crime allows only to take into account the significant features of a specific illegal act, as well as to distinguish a criminal act from non-criminal behavior of the same person. The linguistic construction of the elements of a crime as continuous does not require the mandatory continuous nature of its commission. But the use of a deverbative, which can only be of an actal nature, prevents its use to designate crimes that can be committed as continuous. The continuous nature of the completed act in crimes of this kind is determined by the method of their commission.