Question: Buria mgloiu nebo kroet..

[Robert A. Rothstein]

Svetlana McCoy wrote:

>In English, the linguistic term for the verbs denoting the beginning of
>action/state is 'inchoative'.
>
       Yes, but what Peter was asking about was not what one would call
verbs like _zavyt'_, _zaplakat'_ etc., but what one would call "this use
of the perfective future." The existence of such examples is why in the
Jakobsonian tradition one tends to speak of "non-past" instead of
"future" when referring to the forms of perfective verbs that look like
the present-tense forms of imperfective verbs.  To be sure, in simple
sentences such forms usually have a future meaning, but they can also
have the meaning of potentiality or of "vivid example" (the
_nagliadno-primernoe znachenie_ mentioned by Timothy Sergay), especially
in compound sentences.  That's why the response "ne skazhu" from a
passerby you've asked for directions doesn't mean "I won't tell you
(khe-khe-khe)," but rather "I can't say."
    A more modern example (from Boris Mokrousov's song lyric "Odinokaia
garmon'") of the phenomenon Peter cited from Pushkin:
             Snova zamerlo vse do rassveta,
             Dver' ne skripnet, ne vspykhnet ogon',
             Tol'ko slyshno na ulitse gde-to
             Odinokaia brodit garmon'.

             To poidet na polia, za vorota,
             To obratno vernetsia opiat'...

Bob Rothstein

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