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Verbs of Motion
Verbs of motion (also referred to as VoM) are a distinct class of verbs found in several Slavic languages. Due to the extensive semantic information they contain, Russian verbs of motion pose difficulties for non-native learners at all levels of study [1]. Unprefixed verbs of motion, which are all imperfective, divide into pairs based on the direction of the movement (uni- or multidirectional—sometimes called determinate/indeterminate or definite/indefinite). As opposed to a verb-framed language, in which path is encoded in the verb, but manner of motion typically is expressed with complements, Russian is a satellite language, meaning that these concepts are encoded in both the root of the verb and the particles associated with it, satellites[2] . Thus, the roots of motion verbs convey the lexical information of manner of movement, e.g. walking, crawling, running, whereas prefixes denote path, e.g. motion in and out of space.[3] The roots also distinguish between means of conveyance, e.g. by transport or by one’s own power, and, in transitive verbs, the object or person being transported.[4] The information below provides an outline of the formation and basic usage of unprefixed and prefixed verbs of motion.
Unprefixed Verbs of Motion:
This table contains 14 commonly-accepted pairs of Russian verbs of motion, adapted from Muravyova.[4]
| English | Unidirectional | Multidirectional |
|---|---|---|
| 'to run' | бежа́ть | бе́гать |
| 'to wander' | брести́ | броди́ть |
| 'to convey, transport' | везти́ | вози́ть |
| 'to lead' | вести́ | води́ть |
| 'to drive, chase' | гна́ть | гоня́ть |
| 'to go by vehicle, ride' | е́хать | е́здить |
| 'to go, walk' | идти́ | ходи́ть |
| 'to roll' | кати́ть | ката́ть |
| 'to climb' | ле́зть | ла́зить (ла́зать) |
| 'to fly' | лете́ть | лета́ть |
| 'to carry' | нести́ | носи́ть |
| 'to swim, float' | плы́ть | пла́вать |
| 'to crawl' | ползти́ | по́лзать |
| 'to drag' | тащи́ть | таска́ть |
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Verbs of motion (also referred to as VoM) are a distinct class of verbs found in several Slavic languages. These verbs are highly emphasized in the second-language learning literature due to their confusing nature for non-native learners.[5] These verbs are all semantically related to movement actions, such as walking, swimming, or flying, but are unique in that they form verbal pairs not based upon imperfective or perfect aspect, as typical verbs do, but depending on the “directionality” of the verbs.[6] All un-prefixed verbs of motion are in the imperfective case. Verbs of motion can be either unidirectional or multidirectional (also known as determinate or indeterminate, definite or indefinite, and unidirectional or non-unidirectional).[7] The following table shows the list of the 18 accepted pairs of verbs of motion in the Russian language, adapted from Gagarina (2009).
As the verbs in the chart demonstrate, these verbs are characterized as either encoding just the direction of motion, such as bežat’ ‘to run in one direction’, or encoding direction of motion and type of motion, such as ehat’ ‘to go by vehicle in one direction’. In every pair the two verbs differ depending on their directionality, either unidirectional or multidirectional. Unidirectional verbs denote motion going in only one direction, meaning the one-time motion from a source towards a goal. Multidirectional verbs, however, have several meanings. Multidirectional verbs can refer to: 1) roundtrips, meaning movement from a source to a specific goal and back to the source, 2) random motion or movement in multiple directions, rather than only one direction, 3) repeated motion, such as a movement that takes place everyday, 4) the ability to perform a movement in a certain way. The following example adapted from Gor, Cook, Malyushenkova, & Vdovina (2009) shows the distinction between a unidirectional and a multidirectional verb.
- (1) Я ходи́л на по́чту.
- Ja xodil na počtu.
- I went-MULTI to the post office.
- ‘I went to the post office and came back.’
- (2) Я шёл на по́чту.
- Ja šel na počtu.
- I went-UNI to the post office.
- ‘I was on my way to the post office.’
Many second-language learners of Russian have difficulty with this type of contrast between verbs that denote roundtrip, as in sentence (1), and one-direction motion, as in sentence (2), because non-Slavic languages, such as English, do not grammaticalize the unidirectional and multidirectional distinction. Learners of Russian must learn the correct contexts for when to use verbs of motion; for example, a unidirectional verb in the past, as in sentence (2), often refers to an action in one direction that is interrupted, while the multidirectional verb in sentence (1) would refer to an entire sequence of motion (going and returning) that is completed. In addition to the 18 pairs of un-prefixed verbs of motion which occur above, there are also numerous prefixed verbs of motion that can occur. The addition of a prefix to a verb of motion can cause both semantic and aspectual changes to the verb. When a spatial prefix is added to a unidirectional verb of motion, the verb becomes perfective, whereas spatially prefixed multidirectional verbs remain imperfective.[8] This creates new aspectual pairs of verbs, such as priletet’ (perfective) - priletat’ (imperfective), meaning ‘to arrive by plane.’ In addition to the spatial prefix pri-, which denotes arrival, there are several other spatial prefixes that can be added to verbs of motion to create new verbs, such as v- (enter), vy- (exit), do- (reach a goal), ot- (move away), pod- (approach), and u- (depart), amongst others.[9] However, when a temporal or resultive prefix, most frequently the prefix po-, is added to either a unidirectional or multidirectional verb of motion, both verbs become perfective. For example both the verbs poehat’ and poezdit’ , meaning to go-by-vehicle or to ride, are perfective verbs, although they maintain their directionality distinction, unidirectional and multidirectional, respectively.
- ^ Gor, K., Cook, S., Malyushenkova, V., & Vdovina, T (2009). "Verbs of Motion in Highly Proficient Learners and Heritage Speakers of Russian". The Slavic and East European Journal. 53 (3): 386–408.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Talmy, Leonard (1985). "Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms". In Timothy Shopen (ed.). Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 57–149.
- ^ Nesset, Tore (2008). "Path and Manner: An Image-Schematic Approach to Russian Verbs of Motion". Scando-Slavica. 54 (1): 135–158.
- ^ a b Muravyova, L (1986). V. Korotky (ed.). Verbs of Motion in Russian / Glagoly dviženija v russkom jazyke (5 ed.). Moscow: Russkij jazyk.
- ^ Gor, K., Cook, S., Malyushenkova, V., & Vdovina, T (2009). "Verbs of Motion in Highly Proficient Learners and Heritage Speakers of Russian". The Slavic and East European Journal. 53 (3): 386–408.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Bondarchuk, Larissa A., & Derwing, Bruce L (2009). "The Salience of Semantic Features of Russian Verbs of Motion: An Experimental Study". The Slavic and East European Journal. 53 (3): 409–429. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Gagarina, Natalia (2009). "Verbs of Motion in Russian: An Acquisitional Perspective". The Slavic and East European Journal. 53 (3): 451–470.
- ^ Muravyova, L. S. (1986). Verbs of motion in Russian. Yazyk Publishers.
- ^ Titelbaum, Olga A. (1990). "Prefixed Russian Verbs of Transposition". Russian Linguistics. 14 (1): 37–46. doi:10.1007/bf02743715.