View – this is a morphological category of a verb, which indicates the relationship of the action denoted by the verb to the internal limit of this action: decide – decide.
All verbs in any form have a meaning of the form, therefore, this category is universal. The category of aspect is binary: it consists of verbs of two types: perfect (answer the question what to do?) and imperfect (answer the question what to do?).
View– this is a specific category of Russian and other Slavic languages, one of the complex categories of grammar, which is studied by a special section of grammar – aspectology. The private meanings of both types of verbs are varied: the meaning of completeness (to say), the meaning of a one-time action (to shout), the meaning of an indefinite duration of action (to shout), etc.
All these particular meanings can be reduced to more general ones: action without indicating its internal limit (imperfect verbs) and action indicating its internal limit (perfect verbs).
Perfective and imperfective verbs differ not only in categorical meaning, but also in inflection and grammatical compatibility. Imperfect verbs in the indicative mood they have the ability to form all tense forms (do – did – I do – I'll do it), they have a full set of tense forms of participles. For perfective verbs there is no present tense form in the indicative mood (do – did – I'll do it) and present participles. Perfect Verbs never combined with verbs denoting any phase of action (start, finish, continue, etc.), and with words and phrases like for a long time, for hours, daily, etc.
The majority of verbs in the Russian language are opposed to each other in appearance: they form species pairs. Two verbs that are identical in their lexical meaning, but differ in the grammatical meaning of the perfective and imperfective form, are combined species pair: write – write, do – do.
The most common method of speciation is suffixal.
Imperfective verbs are formed from perfective verbs using suffixes: -willow-, -yva-(glue – glue, ask – question), -va-, -a-(-i) (give – give, sing – sing, decide – decide, save – save).
Perfective verbs are formed from imperfective verbs using the suffixes -nu- and -anu-: (push – push, prick – prick, sprinkle – sprinkle), prefixes for-, on-, from-, s-, pro-, o-, you-, on-, once-, etc.(take notes – take notes, write – write, bake – bake, make – do, read – read, weaken – weaken, heal – cure, build – build, etc.).
But most often, prefixes not only change the grammatical meaning of the aspect, but also give the verb a new lexical meaning; such verbs do not form an aspectual pair: read – reread, reprimand, read out, etc.
The verbs that make up the aspectual pair can differ only in the place of stress:cut – cut, pour – pour.
In some cases, members of a species pair can be expressed by verbs with different stems: take – take, look for – find, talk – say.
Not all verbs in the Russian language can form aspectual pairs. The differences between the verbs that make up the aspectual pair should be reduced only to the difference in indicating the internal limit
Verbs that have only perfective or imperfective meanings are called single-species. Most often these are verbs with a pronounced method of verbal action: to be, to exist, to appear (imperfect form), to say, to shout, to wake up, to sleep (perfect form)
Bi-aspect verbs They express perfective and imperfective meanings through the same form. These verbs occupy a special place in the aspectual system of the Russian language. Please note that it is important not to confuse two-aspect verbs with verbs that have aspect pairs.
Two-aspect verbs include: verbs with suffixes -ova(t), -irova(t): address, organize, confiscate, etc.; some verbs with suffixes -a(t), -e(t), -i(t): run, promise, crown, promise, grant, wound, etc.
Most often, the duality of verbs manifests itself in the forms of the past tense and infinitive, but sometimes the forms of the present and future tense are not distinguished (execution, wife). The meaning of one or another type is revealed in the context. For example: The guns are firing from the pier, they are ordering the ship to land (what are they doing?) (A. Pushkin); Would you like me to order (what will I do?) bring the rug? (N. Gogol).
Still have questions? Don't know how to determine the aspect of a verb?
To get help from a tutor, register.
The first lesson is free!
website, when copying material in full or in part, a link to the source is required.
Why do we need a verb type?
We all know how abundant verb tenses are in the English language. Or in French. Or in Spanish. This has its own unconditional charm - but there are also certain difficulties. How can you remember all this - the past simple, the past continuous, the past associated with the present, the past perfect and imperfect, the pre-past... And if we are talking about Romance languages, then to what has been said we must also add a number of forms Modo Subjuntivo/Subjonctif, expressing all the same , but with an added touch of subjectivity...
In this regard, the Russian language - a drum roll should sound here - is much, well, simply incomparably simpler! We have only three tenses: past, present, future. However, let’s stop the jubilation and think: how could we fully express our thoughts if everything was limited to this? But then we wouldn’t be interested in talking at all!
And so that our thoughts are formed accurately, beautifully, interestingly, diversely - the Russian language has an excellent means: it has a type of verb! And in this sense, the type of verb is our best friend, and not at all our blood enemy. Contrary to popular belief, the form of the verb was not created in order to hopelessly complicate our life, but in order to make it easier and more beautiful.
What is a verb type and how to learn it?
Forget that verb aspect is a complex grammatical topic. In my life, I taught Russian to several hundred students. From a variety of countries, from all, it seems, continents. And therefore I know that the bulk of the problems with the aspect of the verb can be completely eliminated if the meaning and use of the forms are clearly explained and consolidated from the very beginning. It is important to follow two conditions.
Condition one:
First you need to master and thoroughly consolidate the basics of this grammatical topic, and only then turn to more complex particular cases.
Condition two:
Verb pairs (in the sequence “imperfective aspect - perfective aspect” - this is how they will be written in any textbook, grammar manual, etc.) must be learned by heart. Even if you’re lazy, even if you don’t feel like it, there’s nothing you can do about it. The verb, especially in everyday life, is the organizing center of the sentence. Give it enough attention at the initial stage - and you will never regret it. Of course, at first we will be talking about a relatively small number of verbs (and you need to be able to actively use all grammatical forms, that is, both the imperfect form and the perfect form in the present, past and future tense), but gradually the list should expand.
In this article we will talk about the basics of the topic. "type of verb".
All verbs in Russian have the form: either imperfect (NSV) or perfect (SV). That is, every time you use a verb when constructing a phrase, you choose not only the tense, but also the type of verb. Without aspect, a verb does not exist in Russian!
NSV verbs express an action in the process of its occurrence. SV verbs denote an action limited by a limit (often we define this as “result”).
Compare:
He is reading book(NSV): we imagine a person sitting at a table in a library or at home in a cozy chair. There is an open book in front of him, he runs his eyes page by page - that is, it unfolds before our eyes. process, course of action .
He read book(SV): reading is finished, the book is closed and put aside, perhaps it has already returned to the shelf or to the library. Before us - limit, result, end of action .
That is, when constructing your own sentence with this or that verb, you will first have to decide which type of verb to choose: imperfect or perfect. Thus, the English verb read corresponds to the aspect pair “read (NSV)/read (SV)”. If you want to say something about the process of action, you will form the appropriate form from the infinitive “to read” (NSV); if about a completed action that has a result - from “read” (SV). [An infinitive is the base form of a verb, the form you find in the dictionary].
Let's consider another example with a new species pair: write (NSV)/write (SV).
She writes letter(NSV) - process, course of action: lines appear one after another on a sheet of paper.
She wrote and the letter is two hours(NSV) - before us again is the process of action, but this time it is relegated to the past. From this sentence we learn that for a certain time, a girl unknown to us was sitting with a piece of paper and a pen at the table or in front of the computer. We don't know how this process ended. Was the letter finished? Was it sent to the recipient? The proposal does not provide answers to these questions.
The situation is fundamentally different in the following example:
She wrote letter(SV). This sentence tells us that there is a limit to the action, and a specific result has been achieved: the letter is finished, lies on the table in an envelope, or has already been sent.
In the Russian language there is a small number of two-aspect verbs (that is, verbs that can be used both in the meaning of NSV and in the meaning of SV) and a certain number of one-aspect verbs (that is, verbs that do not have an aspect pair and are used only in one form). We will not dwell on them now; it would be somewhat premature. Now we will talk about verbs that form aspectual pairs- because these are the majority of verbs in the Russian language, and at the initial stage it is very important to understand the difference between the perfect and imperfect forms of the verb and learn to use them in speech.
Formation of perfective and imperfective forms
By method of education verbs forming aspect pairs, can be divided into three groups:
2. suffixal, for example: tell - tell
3. suppletive, for example: talk - say
Let's look at each of the groups in more detail.
- What happens to the verbs of the first group is called “perfectification”. It means that the perfect form (“perfect”, hence the name) is formed from the imperfect form by adding a prefix or prefix (pro-, s-, po-, you-, etc.). It is impossible to guess with the help of which prefix the perfect form will be formed! Therefore, all that remains is to memorize the verb pairs. So, remember the minimum program:
read - about read write - on write, draw - on draw, draw - on draw, do - With do, photograph - With take pictures, sing - With sing dance - With dance, play - With play, be able to - With be able, be able - With can, is - With eat (something specific; for example, eat an apple), eat - By eat, drink - By drink, drink - You drink (something specific: for example, drink a glass of juice), wash - By wash (or You wash), call - By call, think - By think, knock - By knock, give - By give, kiss - By kiss, have breakfast - By have breakfast, lunch - By have lunch, dinner - By have dinner, get acquainted - By get acquainted, change - By change (or about change), look - By watch, listen - By listen, put - By put, know - at know, see - at see, hear - at hear, cook - at cook, wait - By wait, pay - behind pay (or O to pay) and finally learn - You learn.
Exception: buy (NSV) - buy (SV)!
- The second group behaves in exactly the opposite way. Here “imperfectification” occurs, and the direction is the opposite: a prefix is added to the perfect form - and thus an imperfect form (“imperfect”) appears. As in the case of the first group, what kind of suffix we will need to form the aspect pair of each specific verb can neither be guessed nor logically deduced. Therefore, we remember the minimum program:
give - give, get tired - get tired, get up - get up, open - open, forget - forget, tell - tell, show - show, consider - consider, ask - ask, decide - decide, study - study, receive - receive, repeat - repeat, throw - quit, finish - finish, answer - answer, send - send, congratulate - congratulate, understand - understand, hug - hug, start - start, remember - remember, choose - choose. Well, if you have already learned this, then you can rest - rest!
- Verbs of the third group behave in a very special way and do not obey any rules. The only thing that can be said about them is that the imperfect form and the perfect form of these verbs are not at all similar to each other. Therefore, you just need to learn these verbs by heart. Don't be discouraged, there aren't many of them:
speak - say, take - take, put - put, look - find, catch - catch.
Verb type in present, past and future tense
Already at the initial stage of learning the Russian language, it is very important to understand and remember:
● imperfective verbs have three forms of tense: present, past, future, for example:
I'm reading a magazine;
Yesterday I read a magazine.
● perfect verbs have only two tense forms: past and future, for example:
I read your letter;
Tomorrow I will read your letter.
This is due to the meaning of species: the perfect species denotes an action limited by a limit, and the imperfect species denotes a process. In the present tense we always deal with the process, and never with the result (compare: I read, you look, he eats...). The limit, or result, may either have already been reached (in which case we use the past tense, for example: " He ate an apple"), or will be achieved in the future (then the future tense will be used, for example: " He will eat an apple»).
Basic meanings of verb types
To clearly understand and remember the meanings of verb types in Russian, analyze which of them are in your native language and which ones you will just need to remember.
NSV has three main meanings: the first is “process/duration/duration of action”, the second is “regular/repetitive action” and the third is “fact”, and SV has two - “result” and “one-time use” (we will combine them into one meaning, since the boundary between them is often blurred).
Compare:
The first and second meanings of NSV, as well as the only meaning of SV, usually do not pose any difficulties for foreign students: it is enough to understand the logic once and remember one or two simple examples.
He read and read the novel - and finally read(in the first part of the sentence, NSV is used, since we are talking about the process of action; in the second - SV, since the action is completed).
He opened and opened the door - and finally opened(same situation: NSV-SV).
In the morning he looks through the newspapers(NSV was used because it describes a regular action).
He will read this book in two days(used SV, future tense: the sentence tells us that in two days the result will be achieved).
He plays tennis every week(regularity = NSV).
In addition, these species meanings may be accompanied by specific words to make it easier to select the desired form. Let's write them in the form of a table:
Difficulties for foreigners are usually caused by the third meaning of the NSV, designated as “fact”. Therefore, I advise you to immediately pay attention to it, listen more and remember how Russians use it, and also reinforce the use of this meaning with a large number of examples. For example:
Last night I washed, soaped dishes, cooked dinner and then watched TV.
During the day I walked to the Hermitage, and then had lunch with a Russian friend in the same cafe.
Thank you, I don't want coffee, I'm already drank coffee this morning.
From these sentences you get general information about what your interlocutor did. In this case, you are not interested in whether this or that action was completed, whether this or that result was obtained.
It is important to understand that in these sentences it is possible to replace the NSV with the meaning “fact” with the SV with the meaning “result”. In this case, the connotation of the phrase will inevitably change (foreigners often do not take this change in meaning into account). Having said " I did the laundry, washed the dishes, cooked dinner", the Russian means - hurray, I'm done, I'm free! " I went to the Hermitage“- it means I couldn’t get there for a long time, and finally I got there, what a blessing!
Once you have learned the aspect pairs and completed the practice exercises, you will no longer feel unsure when using verb types. And our professional teachers of Russian as a foreign language will be happy to help you make the process of learning Russian fun and effective. On our website you can choose a teacher and order a free trial lesson with him.
Good afternoon, dear student! Today we will look at types of verbs. Very often my students wonder why there are so many different verbs in the Russian language, how to determine their tense, and why some verbs are used with prefixes and some without. To understand all these issues, let's look at perfect and imperfect verbs.
You will find the form of imperfective verbs in the dictionary; the verb in this case denotes an action, and from this form perfective verbs are formed. It should be noted that there are quite a lot of these methods, here are some of them:
With help consoles, compare:
| Imperfect species | Perfect view |
| Read To read | Read Has red |
| Write To write | Has written |
| Prepare | Has cooked |
| Buy To buy | Buy Has bought |
Please note that we have an exception word that is formed in perfect form without a prefix - this is the verb “Buy”. In its imperfect form, this verb is used with the prefix -po.
With the help of different suffixes:
So, if we want to say that an action happens regularly, we need an imperfective verb. If the action occurred 1 time at some point or day/hour, etc. and we know about its result, then we are dealing with a perfect verb. Such verbs answer the question " what to do?"
If we are talking about repeated actions, then we not only use imperfective verbs that answer the question " what to do?", but we also use various additional information in the form of adverbs, which actually show this repetition. For example,
Anastasia can't cook ( what to do?), she cooks rarely. Anastasiya cannot cook, she cooks rare.
I bought (what did?) beautiful dress, it's for me goes very well! (the result is visible) I bought a new dress, it suits me much.
To correctly determine the aspect of a verb, you can remember some adverbs that will help you correctly decide whether a particular verb belongs to a certain aspect:
Imperfect species
What are they doing? When? How often?
- Nikita watches the film Every morning/evening/day, regularly, often, rarely, sometimes, usually.
- Vitaly buys newspapers
- We are playing volleyball
What did they do? When?
- Nikita watched the movie "Titanic" Yesterday, in the evening, in the morning, today, once, on Friday, 2 days ago, already, not yet.
- Vitaly bought the newspaper "Izvestia"
- We played volleyball very well
I finished my porridge and went for a walk.
The students were delayed at the university, but still mastered the material.
She took a very long time to redo the report.
Tanya cried a lot and did not calm down.
The children laughed a lot and the teacher decided to play with them some more.
Remember, please, that imperfective verbs have 3 forms: past, present and future:
Perfective verbs have only 2 tense forms: past and future
Watched and will watch (What did they do and what will they do?)
The past tense form changes according to numbers:
He ran (singular) and they ran (plural) He ran and they ran.
Depending on the content of the statement, our speech can be divided into description, narration, and reasoning. Each type of speech has distinctive features.
According to functional semantic features in the Russian language, the following types of speech are distinguished:
- narration. Conveys action in development in time sequence.
- description. Characterizes static pictures, conveys their details.
- reasoning. Conveys the development of thought regarding the subject of thought.
The description can be used in any style of speech, but in a scientific one, the description of the subject must be extremely complete, and in an artistic one, the emphasis is placed only on the most striking details. Therefore, the linguistic means in the scientific and artistic style are more diverse than in the scientific one: there are not only adjectives and nouns, but also verbs, adverbs, comparisons and various figurative uses of words are very common.
Examples of descriptions in scientific and artistic style.
1. Apple tree - ranet purple - frost-resistant variety. The fruits are round in shape, 2.5-3 cm in diameter. Fruit weight is 17-23 g. Average juiciness, with a characteristic sweet, slightly astringent taste.
2. The linden apples were large and transparent yellow. If you look through the apple into the sun, it shines through like a glass of fresh linden honey. There were black grains in the middle. You used to shake a ripe apple near your ear and you could hear the seeds rattling.
(According to V. Soloukhin)
Narration is a story, a message about an event in its time sequence. The peculiarity of the narrative is that it talks about successive actions. All narrative texts have in common the beginning of the event (commencement), the development of the event, and the end of the event (denouement). The narration can be conducted from a third person. This is the author's story. It can also come from the first person: the narrator is named or designated by the personal pronoun I.
Such texts often use verbs in the past perfect form. But in order to give the text expressiveness, others are used simultaneously with them: a verb in the past tense form of the imperfect form makes it possible to highlight one of the actions, indicating its duration; present tense verbs allow you to imagine actions as if they were happening before the eyes of the reader or listener; forms of the future tense with the particle how (how will jump), as well as forms like clap, jump help to convey the swiftness and surprise of a particular action.
Narration as a type of speech is very common in genres such as memoirs and letters.
Example narration:
I began to stroke Yashka’s paw and thought: just like a child’s. And tickled his palm. And when the baby pulls his paw, it hits me on the cheek. I didn’t even have time to blink, and he slapped me in the face and jumped under the table. He sat down and grinned.
(B. Zhitkov)
Reasoning- this is a verbal presentation, explanation, confirmation of any thought.
The composition of the argument is as follows: the first part is the thesis, i.e., an idea that must be logically proven, justified or refuted; the second part is the rationale for the thoughts expressed, evidence, arguments supported by examples; the third part is the conclusion, the conclusion.
The thesis must be clearly provable, clearly formulated, the arguments must be convincing and in sufficient quantity to confirm the thesis put forward. There must be a logical and grammatical connection between the thesis and arguments (as well as between individual arguments). For the grammatical connection between the thesis and arguments, introductory words are often used: firstly, secondly, finally, so, therefore, in this way. In argumentative texts, sentences with conjunctions are widely used: however, although, despite the fact that, because. Example reasoning:
The development of word meanings usually proceeds from the particular (concrete) to the general (abstract). Let's think about the literal meaning of such words as education, disgust, previous. Education literally means feeding, disgust means turning away (from an unpleasant person or object), previous means going ahead.
Words-terms denoting abstract mathematical concepts: “segment”, “tangent”, “point”, come from very specific verbs of action: cut, touch, stick (poke).
In all these cases, the original concrete meaning takes on a more abstract meaning in the language.
Also see the article about
The study of which includes many rules and exceptions to them. In this article we will touch on the concept of verb type and the correct use of verbs of one type or another in speech.
What is the aspect of a verb?
The type of verb in Russian is determined by the question asked about the word. If we ask what to do?- this is an imperfect form if what to do?- perfect. In other words, an action can be either completed at the time of speech, or not completed - this determines the type.
Read a book (what to do? imperfect form) - the action is not completed, it is being performed at the present moment. Read a book (what to do?)- the action has already been completed, it is completed, therefore, the form of this verb is perfect.
How are verb aspect and tense related?
The tense and aspect of the verb in Russian are very closely related. An action that has not been completed can be spoken of in the form of any tense: I baked pies, I bake pies, I will bake pies. In other words, imperfective verbs can take any of three tenses. It should be remembered that such verbs have the form of a complex future tense (infinitive with a modal verb).
In contrast, perfective verbs can only be in the past or future tense. In other words, the action has either been performed or will be performed. Such words do not have a present tense category. After all, perfective verbs denote either the beginning of an action or its result, while the present tense form implies the duration of the action, the period of its completion. Therefore, these two concepts are mutually exclusive.
When forming the future tense, a simple form is used. I baked pies - I will bake pies.
Basic ways of forming types of verbs
Now we have figured out what the type of verb is in Russian. How are words of the perfect or imperfect form formed?
Most often, to form the perfect form, it is enough to add a prefix to the word. As the meaning changes, so does the question. Drive (what to do?) - come, leave, drop by (what to do); swim - swim, swim, swim across; to draw - to draw, to finish drawing, to draw etc.
However, you should not think that the type can be determined by the presence of a prefix. For example, the word buy does not have a prefix, but answers the question what to do?, which means it belongs to the perfect form.
The type of verb in Russian can also be changed using a suffix. To condense - to condense, to invite - to invite, to shout - to shout.
Uncommon case: replacement of the base
There are cases when, by replacing the stem, a different type of verb is formed (table). The Russian language is complex and insidious. For native speakers, there is nothing strange in the fact that when the type changes, the entire word can change completely, but foreigners have to learn a lot by heart. Let's give a few examples.
These are just a few "special" verbs to keep in mind. Special attention should be removed to the verb "put"- its root is used only without a prefix, but when adding it it changes to the root -false- ( put, fold etc.).
Bi-aspect verbs
It happens that the specific forms of verbs in Russian can only be distinguished in context, because words, although they have different meanings, sound the same. Most often, such words can be recognized by the suffix -irova- or -ova- (-eva-). Attack, reward, vaccinate, start, etc. It took a very long time to start (what did you do?) - He got off to a good start (What did you do?).
To determine the type of such a verb, you need to carefully understand the context and ask the question correctly.
Why do you need to know about verb types?
It would seem that what could be difficult about such a concept as the type of verb? In the Russian language there are rules that are more complex. But, oddly enough, one of the most common mistakes in constructing sentences and even texts is associated with this rule. The fact is that the type of the verb and all verbal forms (remember that some linguistic schools classify participles and gerunds as independent parts of speech, others as special forms of the verb) must be uniform in a certain speech segment. That is, the action is either completed (will be performed) or is performed at the moment of speech.
"Grandma baked pies, made tea, invited us to dinner, and we wanted to stay" - verbs of both types alternate in one sentence, which makes the meaning of the phrase difficult to grasp." When I went to a neighbor's house, I asked if he had salt." - in this sentence the type of gerund and verb do not match, the action seems to have already been completed, but at the same time it has not. It is more correct to construct the phrase like this: " I went to my neighbor's house and asked..."
Let's sum it up
So, the type of verb is very easy to determine: you just need to ask a question (“what to do?” or “what to do?”). Imperfective verbs can be used in any tense form; perfect - only in the past or future. It is very important to correctly use the form of one or another type of verb so that the phrase is logically correct and understandable!
