The English and the Russian Verb Compared

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 555.

§ 326. In compliance with the system adopted we shall now work out the comparison of the basic features of the English verb with those of the Russian verb.

I. Their lexico-grammatical meanings are fundamentally the same — both in English and in Russian the verb serves to denote an action, a process.

II. As to their lexico-grammatical (stem-building) mor­phemes, here as elsewhere we note a greater variety and abund­ance of stem-building affixes in Russian, both suffixes and prefixes. (Cf. -нича-, -ича-, -е-, -ова-, -ева-, -ствова-, etc; в-, вз-, воз-, вы-, пере-, за-, -из, -на, над-, о-, низ-, etc.). As shown above, the number of verb-building suffixes in English is limited (-ize, -ify, -en, -ate) though the prefixes are fairly numerous. The most productive ways of forming verbs in Modern English are conversion and the use of lexico-grammatical word-morphemes, neither being characteristic of Russian.

III. The dissimilarity between English and Russian verbs is more pronounced when we come to compare their paradigms, their grammatical categories. Although both in English and in Russian the verb exists as a system of systems, the respective structures of these systems are different:

1) The verbid systems of the two languages are quite different. There is no counterpart of the gerund in Russian. The English participle system includes only 7 grammemes represented by the words writing, having written, being writ­ten, having been written, written, living, having lived, whereas the Russian participle system contains hundreds of gram­memes.

2) Analytical forms are predominant in the paradigm of the English verb. As stated (§§ 12, 19), out of 64 forms of the verb lexeme write 59 are of analytical structure (92.2 per cent). This is not the case in Russian where among 358 forms of the paradigm of the verb делать (verbids included) only 38 are analytical (11.2 per cent)¹. The Russian verbids have no analytical forms if we do not count cases like Покурить бы! (Чайку бы! is also possible in Russian).

3) The sets of morphological categories are also different in the two languages. The English verb has the categories of order and posteriority not found in Russian ², while the Rus­sian verb possesses the categories of gender and case, alien to English (Cf. читала, читавший, читавшего, etc.).

4) Categories of the same name have essential distinctions in the two languages.

a) Voice in Russian (represented in opposemes like строит — строится) includes the active voice and the reflexive-neuter voice ³. Forms in -ся are polysemantic. They carry a number of connotations: reflexive (умывается), passive (дом строится), reciprocal (целуются), etc. Pas­sive grammemes are more standard and common in English. Not only transitive but intransitive objective verbs have passive opposites.

b) Nor are English and Russian aspects identical, though the general principle underlying the differentiation писал — написал, wrote — was writing is the same: they show the character of the action. In English the continuous aspect is much more specific than the non-continuous aspect. The continuous aspect, lays stress on the continuity of the action. When no specification is intended the non-continuous aspect is employed. In Russian the perfective aspect is more specif­ic. It accentuates the entirety of the action (or some stage of the action —он спел, он запел). When no specification is wanted, the imperfective aspect is used. Consequently the imperfective aspect has a much broader meaning than the continuous aspect (Ci. Дети летом спят в саду, The children sleep in the garden in summer, the continuous aspect would be out of place) and the perfective aspect is narrower than the non-continuous which makes a bare statement of the action and when used in speech, may acquire different aspect ive colouring. Cf. Он встретил друга. Не met his friend. He often met his friend at the club. The correlation of the aspects in the two languages can roughly be presented thus:

Unlike the English participle, the participle in Russian has aspect distinctions делавший — сделавший.

c) Though English and Russian tenses have much in common, they differ in the distribution of absolute and rela­tive meanings. (Cf. Он сказал, что живет в Москве. Не said that he l i v e d in Moscow.) (In the subordinate clause the Russian verb has a relative tense meaning, the English verb an absolute one.) Когда 6 у д у в Москве, зайду. When I am in Moscow, I shall drop in. (In the subordinate clause the tense meaning of the Russian verb is absolute, that of the English verb relative.)

d) English and Russian moods, though fundamentally alike, have a number of distinctions: thus Russian impera­tive grammemes include number meanings not found in English (Cf. читай — читайте), Russian subjunctive gram­memes are uniform (Cf. читал бы, читали бы). In English their forms are markedly varied (invite, should invite, would invite, invited, had invited, etc.); in Russian speech one and the same mood grammeme serves to express different shades of non-fact. (Cf. Я настаиваю на том, чтобы он сде­лал это сам — problematic, если б ы он тогда сделал это сам ... —contrary to reality.) English grammemes are differentiated: some are used to present an act as problematic (I insist that he s h о и l d do it himself), others — as contra­dicting reality (If he ha d d о п е it himself, it would be different now), etc.

e) The category of person in English differs from its three-member Russian counterpart in having two-member opposemes (am — is, write — writes, opposing the third per­son to the first, shall — will, opposing the first person to the non-first), in not having person meaning in the plural grammemes of the present tense (Cf. читаем — читаете, читают, we (you, they) read), in the limited extent of the category of person.

f) Number is an all pervading category in Russian, em­bracing the finite verb and the verbids (the participle). With the exception of impersonal verbs no verb is thinkable outside this category, whereas in English it is but scantily represent­ed in the finite verb, the verbids being altogether bereft of number.

g) Dissimilarity in the nature of the categories is coupled with considerable dissimilarity in the subclasses of verbs in English and Russian. Thus, in Russian the division of verbs into transitive and intransitive is most essential with regard to the category of voice. In English more relevant is the di­vision into subjective and objective verbs. Likewise the subclasses of terminative and durative verbs distinguishable in English prove less relevant for the Russian verb.

IV. As to their combinability English and Russian verbs have a number of common properties (both in English and in Russian they are associated with nouns and pronouns denoting the subjects or objects of the actions denoted by the verb, they attach adverbs, etc.), but in English, owing to the existence of the gerund the verb may be modified by a noun in the possessive case, a possessive pronoun attached to the verb as its attribute, or it may be introduced by a pre­position, all that is absolutely impossible in Russian. Pecul­iar is the combinability of English verbids in the so-called complexes.

E. g. Miss Subil had no desire for me to stay. (Snaith).

Tell me about this horrible business of my father wanting to set me aside for another son. (Shaw).

Connected with the difference in combinability is the difference in function.

a) In English the verb participates in different complexes with secondary predication (nexuses) which is not typical of Russian. "(I saw him come, I saw him coming, I am not against Tom coming, Tom was seen to come, etc.).

b) Owing to the existence of the gerund the verb may be used as a prepositional object, an adverbial modifier of concession, condition, etc., that is in those functions which are not discharged by the verbs in Russian.

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¹We have not counted combinations like был сделан as analytical forms {see note 3 below).

² Though opposemes like делая — сделав, or делающий — делавший, traditionally regarded as belonging to the category of tense, resemble rather English order opposemes.

³ Some linguists speak of the passive voice in Russian built up analytically with the help of быть and the short forms of the participle, e. g. Дом был построен. Seeing that there is grammatical combi-nability between был and построен, дом and построен (cf. Изба была построена, Дома были построены) we must regard them as combina­tions of words like Дом был красив, Изба была красива, Дома были красивы.