Verbal Prefixes in Russian - a Brief Introduction
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- Опубліковано 1 лют 2023
- Verbal prefixes play a big part in the richness and subtlety of the Russian language. Going beyond the notion of completion in perfective verbs, they often add nuances that can only be expressed through paraphrasing in other languages. They can turn "write" into "finish writing what you'd started earlier," "wait" into "wait until the thing you're waiting for happens," or "read" into "get lost in your reading." A single well-chosen prefix can express "spilling" (from лить, to pour), "oversleeping" (from спать), "missing one's stop" (from ехать, to ride/drive).
In this introduction we'll go over the most important points about verbal prefixes. Keep in mind that there's more to know than we can cover here; in particular, for the nuances of prefixes with verbs of motion, see my mini-course at www.tips4russian.com/courses/... , which includes comprehension checks in the 15 videos, exercises, example sentences, and downloadable oral practice exercises. It's part of the Russian Grammar Library project at www.tips4russian.com.
This video is can also be seen with embedded comprehension checks and a few exercises at www.tips4russian.com/courses/....
For more on the basics of verbal aspect, see my playlist at • Verbal Aspect
If you're not ready to join us in the Russian Grammar Library but would like to support the channel, you're always welcome to support the channel by buying me a virtual coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/russiang...
Спасибо!
You're one of the Best russian teachers here in youtube, thank you very much for your amazing and dedicated work
Greetings from Brasil
I love you Curtis Ford. ❤ You are so charming, and, what a sweet voice you have.
У вас очень четкий подход ко всем темам. Спасибо.
Спасибо!
these videos are incredibly clear and efficient!!
Many thanks for this very clear explanation - I look forward to the video with the Ыв verbs :)
Coming soon! :)
Очень полезное видео. Спасибо
Thanks
Thank you, for the information about adding ЫВ when using prefixes to keep the imperfective aspect! I'm now off to see if you have a playlist for prefix videos. Большое спасибо!
I'm afraid I don't yet, but that's a great idea...
It's not exactly true that про, с and so on don't change meaning. For the purposes of learning the language sure, that's perfectly right.
But take про-читать it can have the meaning of reading through something, and there is an imperfective for it- прочитывать. And написать has the meaning of writing a quantity of something, which is why написывать also exists. Even with делать - сделать the meaning can be conceived of with С meaning together-to make, to do something up into one whole. There is also the imperfective соделывать. You are totally right that they aren't used in that way much at all, but the reason we add на/с/за etc is still tied to it's base meaning as a preposition.
Great work! Love the channel!
The existence of "empty" prefixes (that don't change the meaning, only aspect) is a controversial issue, often connected with the question of the validity of prefixal pairs. I like J. Forsyth's argument in "A Grammar of Aspect: Usage and Meaning in the Russian Verb" that "the final criterion must be usage;" taking прочитывать as an example, in the Russian National Corpus I found 1755 examples of прочитывать, 147,643 of читать. Most of the 268 (!) examples of соделывать seem to be archaic and/or restricted to a religious context. Using UA-cam as a database, youglish.com (a great tool) found just four examples of прочитывать (one in a philosophy text, one in a translation, one in spontaneous speech, and one due to mistaken speech recognition!), as opposed to 4,390 of читать.
For a more detailed discussion of arguments for and against "empty prefixes" see sections 3.1 and 6.3 of Forsyth. If you haven't yet read it you must get it, after reading your comment I think you'd really enjoy it. Every time I open it I find something thought-provoking. You might also like this site on some research done by Dr. Laura Janda and colleagues at emptyprefixes.uit.no/book.htm.
You mentioned "for purposes of language learning," that's definitely an operative phrase here. These discussions would be appropriate for a 4th-year or graduate level class, but for beginning language learning they'd be pedagogical malpractice. :) Thanks for your interesting comment Corey!
@@russiangrammar @Russian grammar Totally right on all those points. I found it helpful when I was learning perfective/imperfective pairs to find even the ones that nobody uses. It's kind of like in English "I love it" has been taken by McDonald's and made into I'm loving it" Loving isn't something that people normally say-but they could say it, just like прочитывать, написывать, are understandable.
Or, for example 'To cut it out'. Normally you would say ' He cut it out' (As in he stopped doing something), but you wouldn't say he IS/WAS cutting it out. Although it is understandable and totally logical.
That is' they show the logic behind prefixes (for me). If you can say something is completed you can obviously say it's in process-it's just actual usage doesn't normally use certain forms, or forms become fossilized.
Maybe a better phrasing of my view-point is that every prefixed verb has a pair, but unprefixed verbs don't have pairs. читать is not a pair to прочитать, instead прочитывать is. Imperfectives are like base descriptions of actions, states and they don't directly pair with perfective unless you add the prefix. Anyway, this is obviously not relevant for language learners, unless they like exploring grammar :)
I also found the explanation that the на- on читать for example, serves no purpose. Why put it there then! Obviously if there are different letters in the perfective they do something! :) Otherwise you could add any prefix to make a perfective.
Prefixed pairs aren't empty, in my opinion.
I often end up torturing my Russian speaking friends with -хаживать, -нашивать, прочитывать forms that I know 'nobody' uses, but exist, because it amuses me to use them now and again.
Anyway, thanks for the resources!
Re: Aspect usage-I really like (Aspectual usage in modern Russian / O.P. Rassudova, 1984)
Please write a paper grammar, 600 pages, 700 pages... I'll buy it‼️ you are a great teacher👏👏👏‼️
I don't have a book (no need to compete with Wade's 'Comprehensive Russian Grammar' or Хавронина - Русский язык в упражнениях!), but if I can interest you in a website with over 180 interactive videos (including complete courses on verbs of motion and participles), with many exercises and examples of usage, updated weekly... I'd love to have you join us at www.tips4russian.com. Милости просим! 😊
@@russiangrammar thanks!👍
This was great. I also noticed something interesting while watching a movie - they keep using imperfective prefixed verbs of motion instead of perfective. For example:
First example) This woman wanted her friend to get out of the taxi quickly. So, she said: выходи! (To me, that means keep getting out of the car over and over again.) I would have expected her to say: "выйди".
Second example) This man was telling his girlfriend: "I'm leaving you for good." And he said: "Я ухожу a тебя совсем." Again, they used an IMPERFECTIVE prefixed verb of motion, when I would have expected them to use the perfective, given he's NOT saying he's breaking up with her over and over again.
Have you ever encountered this in Russian?
Aspect can express a number of nuances beyond one time vs. repeated actions, and you've just discovered two. With the imperative, an imperfective is sometimes used when a command needs to be repeated (the command, not the action), or to express impatience or urgency; this can explain выходи. There's more on aspect & the imperative in this video ua-cam.com/video/HIMTC5SG_mY/v-deo.html , with this particular point at 1:45.
In Я ухожу от тебя... I'd interpret this as just a present tense of an imperfective verb - an action that's in progress. Imperfectives can express a general, repeated action: я всегда читаю её письма = 'I always read her letters,' ... or something that's happening right now: я читаю её последнее письмо = 'I'm reading her last letter.' ))
@@russiangrammar Thank so much for helping me get my head around this. I appreciate it.
@@dmp7252"Пошли!" can be used as an imperative form let's go
With пере- my mind naturally jumped to перестройка.
Great example! строить 'to build,' перестроить 'to rebuild, reconstruct' (perfective), перестраивать 'to rebuild, reconstruct' (imperfective)... and the related noun перестройка. :)
@@russiangrammarесть ещё идин нюанс с приставкой пере-. Сделать больше/лучше чем кто-то. Перепить кого-то = выпить больше чем он. Переиграть кого-то = выиграть у него.
I’ve watched several videos explaining the so-called “alternate perfective” with the prefix по- & it’s meanings (e.g. почитать). If a verb already forms it’s perfective with this prefix (e.g. работать), is there a way to distinguish between the two?
I believe поработать just has the meaning 'work for a while.' I'm not aware of a perfective for работать that doesn't add to or change the meaning - for example, доработать 'finish working on something,' заработать 'to earn.' Knowing whether по- just creates a perfective, as in посмотреть, or adds the meaning of 'doing something for a while,' as in почитать, подумать, is a matter of learning each pair as you come to it. :)
@@russiangrammar Thank you for your help sir.
- Недоработать.
- Недопереработать.
- Заперечитать.
- Недозапереработать.
- Недозаперечитать.
- Перезадоперезачитать.
.....
There are several dozen variants of this verb.
Knowing the root of a word (verb), knowing the endings of cases, declensions, genders, tenses and knowing prefixes and suffixes, you can create absolutely any word (with this root) that you want according to all parameters of life and feelings. Let these words not appear in the dictionary, even if they are illiterate according to the strict norms of the Russian language (literary), but you can convey in one word absolutely all your emotions, in any tense, case, declension, gender, number.
@@russiangrammar In my opinion, the perfect of the verb “work” is "ОТРАБОТАТЬ".
@@Nissan-Erugurando нет, тут глагол от слова отработка. То есть ты должен был что-то сделать
In which country do you work as a teacher?
In the US.
if читать is to read, then wouldn't прочитать be to have read?
I'm not an expert in English grammar, but I've read that "to have done" something is an infinitive form of the present perfect tense. Прочитать is an infinitive in the perfective aspect. In any case, usage wouldn't always map precisely - 'нам надо прочитать весь роман' can mean simply "we have to read the whole novel," without the nuance of "have to have read it" (before some other action or time).
Кроме того, некоторые из этих префиксных глаголов имеют очень узкое и редко используемое значение. Недавно я услышал глаголы
отоспасть - наверстать потерянный сон и
облечь - сформулировать что-то, что ты собираешься сказать.
Замечательный пример, отоспаться = to catch up on sleep
Облечь в принципе может иметь подобное значение- воплотить, придать чему-то форму, либо наделить властью/полномочиями; устаревшее значение - одеть, покрыть (то же можно увидеть в "облачить"/"облачиться"). Действительно не очень частотный глагол, больше свойственный книжной речи
Ради интереса, я задал вопрос своей дочери, которой 17 лет:
- Я отоспался , но не успел облечься к выходу.
Она ничего не поняла, что я хотел сказать.
А вот старшая дочь, которой 26 лет - прекрасно поняла.
Вот такие дела, однако...
@@Nissan-Erugurandoоблечься к выходу - ну вы и оригинал.
Well presented video, but I wish you took a second to explain the difference between imperfective and perfective. You write out these examples but as someone seeing it for the first time I don’t know, for example, what the difference between делать and сделать is. One’s an imperfective and one’s a perfective - ok, but what does that mean? 😰
Aspect (imperfective vs perfective) is a big topic, so I think it's best dealt with in separate videos. This playlist (of which this introduction to verbal prefixes is a part) should get you started: ua-cam.com/play/PLrIkLgUgjNHevx3MQTtltVnAcxTrpZCid.html 🙂
@@russiangrammar thank you so much!! 😀
Prefix пере- even for me, a native speaker, feels confusing. It has too many meanings.
Наверное, происходит изменение языка под давлением сегодняшней жизни. Современная молодёжь стремится к хорошей, беззаботной жизни, безо всякого труда. ПЕРЕДЕЛЫВАТЬ ≠ ПЕРЕДЕЛАТЬ. ПЕРЕДЕЛЫВАТЬ - значит понять свои ошибки и всё исправить. Изменить самого себя. А глагол " ПЕРЕДЕЛАТЬ" - просто изменить что-то.
В это, текущее время, я крайне редко слышу глаголы с - ЫВ-. В первую очередь - от молодёжи.
Даже от своей дочери я никогда не слышал " это надо переделЫВать", только - "это надо переделать".
- ЫВ-, на мой взгляд, несёт в себе ответственность за свои прошлые действия, а сейчас это никому не надо. Очень жаль.