stuart@rochester.UUCP (06/28/85)
From: Stuart Friedberg <stuart>
References: <921@houxf.UUCP> <349@spar.UUCP>, <326@dssovax.UUCP>
The Slavic "imperfective aspect" has little to do with the "imperfect
tense". In Czech there are just three tenses: past, present and
future. There are two common aspects that all verbs have and a couple
of others that only a few verbs have. The common aspects are
perfective and imperfective (or durative). The uncommon ones are
iterative and one whose name escapes me.
There is no combination of present tense and perfective aspect, but
generally the perfective aspect indicates that an action is complete,
done with, wrapped up and all over with. The durative aspect
indicates an event is on going, continuing, incomplete, etc. It's
hard to express in English precisely what's going on here, because
quite literally we don't have the words for it. It is true that the
best "cheap" translation of a future perfective verb in Czech into
English usually uses the future perfect tense in English, but
translating a future durative verb from Czech into English uses the
English simple future (will go) more often than the future imperfect
(will be going).
The iterative aspect is only found for some verbs. The iterative
aspect indicates that an event is periodic, habitual, repetitive and so
on. There are some oddities here. There is an iterative aspect of the
verb "to carry" that means to wear. If you're familiar with German
there is a similar use of "tragen" to mean either to carry or to wear
depending on context. I haven't any idea who took it from whom, but
Germans and Czechs tell time in the same peculiar way, too. (Peculiar
to North Americans, at least. I'm sure that people from other parts of
the world will forgive me my cultural blinders.) Anyway, Czech is a
pretty regular language. I believe some of the less common Slavic
aspects show up much more often in Russian. (There are entire
dictionaries devoted to nothing but Russian verbs of motion, because
they are so irregular!)
Speaking of regular, although no one calls them this, there are several
well-defined conjugations and declensions. I would say how many, but
it's been too long since I've done this stuff. Seven cases in each
declension. Czech nouns (and adjectives) have gender and number.
Gender is masculine, feminine and neuter. Number is singular and
plural, and for a very few old words, dual as well. Gender effectively
disappears in the plural forms. I never heard anyone use the plural
neuter form, for example. But in principle it's there. There is also
a masculine animate form used in a couple of declensions for living
masculine singular things and living plural things. All told well over
225+ noun endings to remember. Fortunately, there are healthy
equivalence classes where they're all the same!
Verbs aren't quite so hairy. They have person (1st, 2nd and 3rd),
tense (past, present and future) and number. The different aspects of
a verb are actually counted as separate verbs (!). Two or more
infinitives and the whole bit. One of my favorite examples is "brat"
and "vzit". These both mean "to take" and are forms of the "same
verb". Brat is the imperfective aspect (I think. It's been a loooong
time!) and vzit is the perfective aspect. For most verbs the two (or
more) aspects are a LOT closer together.
Despite all this, Czech and Slovak are STILL more regular than most
languages. I have an amateur conviction that Czech grammar was
strongly influenced by Latin. (Consider Charles University in Prague
and the AustroHungarian Empire) Czech was also standardized through
its written form about 600 years (six centuries) before Slovak, which
is mutually intelligible (more or less completely). Anyone wanting
evidence for the Great Vowel Shift should look at these languages. All
the long vowels in Czech have become dipthongs in Slovak (and are
written that way). The (few) dipthongs in Czech have become
distinctive vowel clusters in Slovak. Kind of neat, really.
Just some random ramblings,
Stu Friedberg {seismo, allegra}!rochester!stuart stuart@rochesterallen@osu-eddie.UUCP (John Allen) (07/10/85)
> I believe some of the less common Slavic > aspects show up much more often in Russian. (There are entire > dictionaries devoted to nothing but Russian verbs of motion, because > they are so irregular!) > Stu Friedberg {seismo, allegra}!rochester!stuart stuart@rochester The Russian verbs of motion are not at all irregular (well not very anyhow). They are completely consistent within this group of verbs and are very similar to the other verbs of Russian. They only look irregular because they often have stems that end in consonants and because they require a distinction which is meaningless for other verbs. All Russian verbs have a perfective/imperfective pair. The perfective has only a past and a future which are formed similarly to the Czech verbs; the imperfective has a past, present, and future which, again, are formed similarly to those in Czech. The verbs of motion differ in that the imperfective can be expressed with either of two verbs which are often labelled determinate/indeterminate. So, each verb of motion has three different verbs associated with it. For example. IMPERFECTIVE PERFECTIVE INDETERMINATE DETERMINATE khodit' idti pojti `walk, go' plavat' plyt' poplyt' `swim' nosit' nesti ponesti `carry by hand' vozit' vezti povezti `carry by vehicle' . . . [I'm not positive about all of the forms, but the general idea is there] The difference between the use of the determinate and the indeterminate is very hard to describe completely. In very simple terms the determinate is used for "uni-directional" motion. That is, motion in one direction towards a specific goal. In practice, the motion doesn't have to be one direction, but does have to be towards a specific goal. Ya shel v magazin. `I was going to the store [ but I stopped at library, the newspaper stand, the high school, etc.]' [ shel is the (masc.) past form of idti] The motion is not in one direction, but is towards the specific goal of reaching the store (eventually). The indeterminate is used for "multi-directional". This can be split into several different subgroups 1) Repeated action. Kazhdyj den', ya khozhu v universitet. `Every day, I walk to the university.' 2) Habitual action. Ya khozhu v universitet. `[In general] I walk to school.' 3) Round trips. Ya khodil v magazin. `I went to the store[, but now I'm back].' 4) Ability. Moj syn khodet. `My son is walking (can walk). In truth the choice between determinate/indeterminate is much more complicated, but these guidelines are very useful for most practical purposes. I hope this helps. John Allen Ohio State University (UUCP: cbosgd!osu-eddie!allen) (CSNet: allen@ohio-state)