povodil: sov. ili nesov.?

[Alina Israeli]

There are two prefixes po-, maybe actually three, the two I mean are 
ingressive (beginning of the action), delimitative (Stephen Dickey is 
the best authority here), and the third is empty.

If you can insert 'nemnogo' or 'nedolgo' or their synonyms then you are 
dealing with delimitative, short duration. This is the case here: 
povodil chutok po nej pal'cami.

Delimitative is perfective.

We can find "povodil" imperfective, as in the next example where it 
means 'would do', repetitive action, in this case, I believe it's an 
empty perfectivizing po-:

говорил убедительно и кротко, выступал без шуму, приятно улыбался, 
приятно поводил глазами, приятно погружал подбородок в галстух: вообще 
приятный был человек (Turgenev)

The ingressive would not work with this verb, but would with vesti:

После этого он повел разговор о том, какой состав будет иметь книжка 
"Современника" на следующий месяц (Chernyshevsky)

We can also find the empty one with vesti:

Яшка моргнул, отпустил осоку, повел плечами под мокрой рубашкой (Kazakov)

In general it seems that a verb cannot have all three meanings, at least 
I did not find one that would have all three meanings.



gladney at ILLINOIS.EDU wrote:
> Dear Russian speakers,
>
> The 17-volume Academy dictionary gives this citation: 
>
> Adrionov otkryl svoi nevidiashchie glaza, raskryl moiu ladon’, i povodíl po nej pal’tsami, budto pishet.
>
> Is _povodil_ here perfective or imperfective?
>
> In view of the narrow focus of my query, it may be better to respond directly to gladney at illinois.edu.
>
> Spasibo zaranee,
>   
Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387     fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu

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