Aspect Pairs

Perfective Verbs without prefixes

Verbs without prefixes are mostly imperfective. There are, however, a certain number of perfective verbs without prefixes. They fall into these four groups:

• A few non-suffixed stems::

• Unprefixed НУ verbs.

These are almost all perfective (see more on НУ verbs). They often have the meaning of ‘doing something once or a specific number of times,. Quite often there are imperfective -АЙ- verbs with the same root:

Verbs describing sounds usually have a pair with the suffix Е or Ч-А:

(Grammarians are in dispute as to whether pairs like these should be called aspect pairs.)

• A number of И verbs, some of which are listed below.

Imperfective partners are all in -АЙ-, stressed on the suffix. Note the pair купќть — покупђть, in which a prefix is added to the imperfective partner. According to the general pattern, we should have had купќть — *купђть, but купђть is a different verb in Russian meaning ‘to give somebody a bath, to bathe somebody’.

• Some ОВА/УЙ verbs, mostly of foreign origin:

• Quite a few ОВА verbs, with or without prefixes, are bi-aspectual: the same verb can work either as Perfective or as Imperfective. For example, the non-past of атаковђть can mean either present (Imperfective) or future (Perfective):

Also, the same verb атаковђть can form the present active participle (атакџющий) formed from Imperfective verbs only, and the past adverb (атаковђв), formed from Perfective verbs only.

Some verbs work as bi-aspectual only in certain forms. For example, the non-past of организовђть can be either Perfective or Imperfective: Онђ зђвтра организџет турнќр/Онђ всегдђ организџет (or организћвывает) турнќры. However, the past tense of организовђть can be only Perfective, and for Imperfective past организћвывал has to be used.

The tendency of Russian is to get rid of bi-aspectual verbs, and many ОВА verbs have ceased to be bi-aspectual. Some of them have become strictly Perfective, forming Imperfective with the suffix -ИВАЙ: арестовђть (Perfective) - арестћвывать (Imperfective). Other ОВА verbs have become strictly Imperfective, forming Perfective with a prefix: анализќровать (Imperfective) проанализќровать (Perfective).

Aspect pairs: two major kinds of aspect pairs

Verbs without prefixes are mostly Imperfective (see the preceding section for exceptions). When you add a prefix to an Imperfective verb you almost always get a Perfective verb. This Perfective verb with a prefix may or may not mean the same as the verb without a prefix:

An aspect pair is a pair of verbs that mean the same and differ only in aspect. There are two kinds of aspect pairs. In the first kind, like дљлать — сдљлать, the perfective partner is formed by taking the imperfective verb and adding a prefix which does not change the meaning. Perfective verbs like под-дљлать need an Imperfective partner to form a pair. Such partners usually contain a specific suffix. A very common suffix is ИВАЙ:

The two kinds of aspect pairs can be summarized as follows:

If you start off with a perfective verb and ask the question: “What is the imperfective partner of this verb?” the most common answers will be these two:

• The imperfective is the same verb without a prefix:

• The imperfective has a different suffix:

Sometimes, very rarely, a perfective verb has both kinds of partners:

Imperfective partners of no-vowel verbs

No-vowel verbs are those verbs whose roots do not contain a vowel. No-vowel roots usually consist of two consonants. In no-vowel verbs with the suffix НУ the second consonant of the root may be dropped. Here are some examples, most of them familiar to you:

As you can see, no-vowel verbs are encountered both among verbs with suffixes and verbs without suffixes. The imperfective partners of no-vowel verbs are formed in this way: insert the vowel И between the two consonants of the root, and replace the suffix, if any, with the suffix ЂЙ, always stressed. If there is no suffix, simply add the suffix ЂЙ:

The vowel И may also appear as ы, usually before б, в, п:

A very common no-vowel root is МН — words with this root usually mean some mental activity (it has nothing to do with МН- ‘crumple’). You know it in combination with the prefix по-:

The verb пћмнить is Imperfective, even though it has a prefix. Those МН- verbs that have one more prefix are Perfective, and they form Imperfective partners according to the general rule of this section: insert И, add АЙ:

Suffixes that form imperfective partners

In aspect pairs of the kind поддљлать — поддљлывать, the Imperfective partner contains one of these three suffixes: АЙ, ВАЙ, ИВАЙ. Which of these three suffixes appears in a given pair depends on the stem of the Perfective verb. The rules are given below. Note that the rules of this section apply only to those verbs whose roots contain a vowel. Verbs with no-vowel roots all have Imperfective partners with the suffix АЙ, as discussed in the preceding section. For verbs whose roots contain a vowel:

• If the Perfective partner has a stem with the suffix (НУ) or an obstruent stem without a suffix (ends in Б, З, С, Д, Т, Г, К) then the suffix of the Imperfective partner is АЙ. The verb is always stressed on this suffix:

• If the Perfective partner has a stem with the suffix ЕЙ or a resonant stem without a suffix (ends in В, Н, Й) then the suffix of the Imperfective partner is ВАЙ. The last consonant of the Perfective stem drops out before the consonant В of the suffix ВАЙ. The verb is always stressed on this suffix:

• If the Perfective partner has the suffix И, then the Imperfective partner has either the suffix АЙ (more often) or the suffix ИВАЙ. The consonant before the suffix may undergo the familiar set of consonant changes. Verbs that take the suffix -ИВАЙ- are almost always stressed on the syllable immediately preceding this suffix. If this syllable has the vowel О, it changes to А.

• If the Perfective partner has the suffix E, then no rules can be stated; you simply have to memorize both members of the pair.
• If the Perfective partner has any other kind of stem (АЙ, ОВА, НУ, А, О, Ч-А) the Imperfective partner has the suffix ИВАЙ. The verb is almost always stressed on the syllable immediately preceding this suffix; if this syllable has the vowel O it changes to A, except in the suffix –ОВА- in which the O remains unchanged.

In practical terms, the suffix ВАЙ is much less common than the other two, АЙ and ИВАЙ. The most common pairs are:

Irregular aspect pairs

The aspect pairs discussed so far all share this property: both members of the pair have the same root. Sometimes the root of the Imperfective is a modified version of the root of the Perfective (спрос-ќть/спрђш-ивать) but the modifications are regular, i.e. they operate according to certain rules. Irregular aspect pairs are those in which the roots of Perfective and Imperfective are related in an irregular fashion, or else are not related at all. In this section we give examples of such pairs. The list is not complete but contains the more common verbs.

• Some isolated pairs have totally unrelated roots:

• Many prefixed verbs derived from -ложить have imperfectives in -кладывать:

• Some pairs have roots that are related in an irregular fashion:

After the prefix об the в of this root falls out (this happens with some other Russian roots also: обќдеть ‘offend’ = об + вќдеть; при-вІч-ка ‘habit’ comes from the same root as об-Іч-ай ‘custom’):

One вер(т)- verb has the Imperfective partner with the Church Slavonic root variant -вращ-, rather than the Russian -ворач-:

• Three stems without -ся have Imperfective partners with -ся:

• For verbs of motion the picture is somewhat complicated because they have two imperfective verbs without prefixes: ordinary Imperfectives and one-way Imperfectives:

It is difficult to say what the Perfective partners of these Imperfectives are. Often this role is filled by verbs with the prefix по- added to one-way Imperfectives. For most verbs (but not носќть) there are also verbs with the prefix с- added to ordinary Imperfectives:

Neither по- Perfectives nor с- Perfectives are pure partners of prefix-less verbs of motion, for they have somewhat different shades of meaning: по- Perfectives mean something like ‘to begin moving’; с- Perfectives mean something like ‘to make a quick round trip’.

Prefixes that obviously change meaning, especially prefixes that indicate the direction of movement (у- = ‘away’, пере- = ‘across’, вы- = ‘out of’ and so on) are added to one-way Imperfectives to form Perfective verbs. The Imperfective partners of these verbs are formed in three different fashions:

• The largest group of Perfective motion verbs have Imperfective partners formed from the stems of the ordinary Imperfectives:

• Some verbs of motion have Imperfective partners formed from the prefixed perfective according to the usual rules for resonant or obstruent stems (preceding section).

• Some verbs of motion have Imperfective partners formed on stems that are not used without prefixes: