Delimitative Verbs in Russian, Czech and Slavic

Abstract

This article presents a comparative investigation of delimitative verbs prefixed in po- in Russian, Czech and the other Slavic languages. It is shown that po- delimitatives are relatively highly productive in a group of eastern Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Bulgarian, Macedonian), whereas these verbs are either unproductive or productive only to a limited degree in a western group of languages (Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian). The relative productivity of po- delimitatives in the eastern and western groups of Slavic languages is thus shown to correlate with other parameters of Slavic verbal aspect discussed by Dickey (2000). The high productivity of po- delimitatives in the eastern group is argued to be a consequence of the hypothesized meaning of the perfective aspect, temporal definiteness, in these languages. Temporal definiteness is relatively independent of verb type: atelic activities can also be temporally definite. On the other hand, the low productivity of po- delimitatives in the western group is argued to be a consequence of the retention by these languages of totality as the meaning of the perfective aspect, which largely restricts the class of perfective verbs to telic predicates (accomplishments and achievements). The productive class of po- delimitatives in the eastern group is an innovation, and is argued to have contributed to the grammaticalization of the aspect opposition in those languages.