The Varying Role of po- in the Grammaticalization of Slavic Aspectual Systems: Sequences of Events, Delimitatives, and German Language Contact

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of three interrelated phenomena: the use of imperfective verbs in sequences of events in Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Slovene, and BCS; the use of po- delimitatives in sequences of events in East Slavic, Polish, and Bulgarian; the semantic nature of the prefix po- in the individual Slavic languages. The use of imperfective verbs in sequences of events in the western languages and the use of po- delimitatives in the eastern languages are two alternative ways of aspectually coding atelic predicates in narratives. The article makes two main arguments in this connection. The first is that the use of imperfective verbs in sequences of events in the western languages has been retained (and perhaps strengthened) due to German language contact, whereas the use of po- delimitatives for such atelic predicates represents an innovation in those languages that did not undergo significant amounts of such German language contact. The second is that the lack of the development of po- into an important perfectivizing prefix in the western languages is likewise due in part to German language contact, as po- was at various times used to calque German be- in its surface-contact and transitive meanings as well as ver- in its meaning of change of state; such calques contributed to the stabilization of po- as a lexical prefix in the western languages. The retarding effect of German language contact on the western languages whereby imperfective verbs remained acceptable in sequences of events, and po- did not become a major perfectivizing prefix, is analyzed as the result of a process of "replica preservation," as opposed to the more commonly discussed process of "replica change" described by Heine and Kuteva (2005).

The typology of Slavic aspect: a review of the East-West Theory of Slavic aspect

“…In many ways the theory presented by Stephen Dickey (2000), and further elaborated upon in subsequent articles (among others Dickey 2001Dickey , 2005Dickey , 2011Dickey , 2015, to appear), 10 can be seen as a verification of and an elaboration on Barentsen's ideas, specifically on the difference between the meaning of the pf aspect in Russian and in Czech. In contrast to Barentsen's theory, which focuses mainly on Russian, Dickey's theory has a stronger typological character, because he discusses various Slavic languages.…”

“…The main difference between Russian and Western languages such as Czech is that, whereas a language like Czech can sometimes use imperfectives, Russian mostly uses specialized ingressive pf prefixes (za-, po-) or pf ingressive verbs (stat') in similar instances. Dickey and Hutcheson (2003) and Dickey (2011Dickey ( , 2015 show that the very development of these specialized (po-) forms from the seventeenth century on points to a closer association between contexts of sequential connection and the pf in Russian and as such can be considered one of the most important developments in the Russian aspectual system, setting it apart from, among others, the Czech aspectual system. This is in accordance with the observation made by Ružička (1962, p. 316) that in older versions of Russian, the use of the ipf was more common in sequences of past events (see also Dickey 2007Dickey , 2011.…”

Несовершенный Вид И Сукцессивность. К Вопросу О Нетривиальных Контекстах В Русском Языке В Плане Прошлого

“…Как, например, показали исследования Св. Иванчева (1961), А. Стуновой (Stunová 1993), C. Дики (Dickey 2000(Dickey , 2011, Т. Бергера (Berger 2013a,b) в тех кон-текстах, где в русском языке обязательно должен быть употреблен СВ, например, в чешском (4а) и словацком (5) языках могут использоваться и глаголы несовершенного вида (далее -НСВ):…”

The verbal prefix u- in Croatian and Bulgarian

“…There are few comparative studies of Slavic prefixes; see Šarić and Tchizmarova (2013) on od-/ot-, Šarić and Nedelcheva (2015) on o(b)-, Dickey (2011Dickey ( , 2012 on po-, Dickey (2005) on s-/z-, Dickey (1999) on za-, and Mitkovska and Bužarovska (2012) on nad-. Townsend (1997) concentrates on the prefix u-in Czech and Russian from a very general perspective, comparing prefixed verbs that indicate positive and negative modality.…”