[SEELA NGS] Is it the use o f Dative v s Acc usat iv e tha t clarifie s the mean ing of Учи ть?

[Mark Nuckols]

This discussion got me curious enough to re-read Katarzyna Dziwirek's "A Difference Kind of Non-Canonical Case Marking: The Slavic Verb 'To Teach'" (SEEJ, v. 46, no. 2 (2002), 319-47). The normal pattern for verbs of this sort is to have dative of person and accusative of thing (analogous to 'give s.th. to s.o.'), which is reversed in учить and its cognates in other Slavic languages--historically. But the modern Slavic languages seem to be increasingly employing strategies to avoid the old, almost counterintuitive, pattern. One strategy is to use other verbs for 'teach.' Dziwirek observes (326): "In Croatian predavati, in Russian prepodavat', and in Bulgarian prepodavam must be used when talking of teaching at school or other formal institution, when teaching academic subjects, etc." 
 
I have long assumed that in contemporary Russian you can say я преподаю в школе/в университете (no object) or я преподаю русский язык, but
я учу русскому языку (в школе) (meaning I teach--or, for that matter, I learn) sounds archaic at best.
 
Well, I couldn't resist googling "учить русскому языку." The first results page showed mostly examples of учить чему кого, but there was this interesting example from Komsomol'skaja Pravda (http://www.kp.md/online/news/54071/, title and first paragraph).
 
В школах Чикаго будут учить русскому языку
 
В ближайшее время власти Чикаго введут в школах уроки русского языка. В рамках программы по улучшению имиджа города и придания ему "глобального статуса" в школах уже учат китайскому, а также арабскому языкам, сообщает РИА "Новости".
 
I'm really curious how native speakers judge or explain this.

Mark Nuckols 




 

> Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:23:34 -0400
> From: moss at MIDDLEBURY.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Is it the use of Dative vs Acc usativ e that clarifies the meaning of Учи ть?
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> There are two different verbs with the same imperfective.
> 
> Further, you would be highly unlikely to get учить чему WITHOUT a 
> person attached.
> 
> This one is учить/научить кого чему, and both are usually obligatory.
> 
> Учить что is instead учить/выучить, which in the imperfective is 
> often informal learning, rather than the kind of studying one does in 
> college.
> This one you will never have WITHOUT an object
> 
> 
> On Sep 21, 2010, at 12:12 PM, Alina Israeli wrote:
> 
> > Учу стихотворению while theoretically possible, not very likely due 
> > to the meaning of the verb учить, to teach. It works only with 
> > skills: учить читать, писать, ходить, рисовать, дышать, работать, 
> > заучивать стихи, писать стихи; учить иностранному языку, танцу, 
> > пению, вышиванию, стихосложению etc.
> >
> > "Мemorizing a poem by heart" is not a skill, cannot teach it to 
> > others.
> >
> > AI
> >
> > Sep 21, 2010, в 10:11 AM, Mark Kingdom написал(а):
> >
> >> ...and thus, YES, it seems to be the usage of Dative vs Accusative 
> >> that
> >> determines meaning?
> >>
> >> Я учу стихотворени*ю*. ....now has the meaning of, "I am teaching a
> >> poem..." (to an unnamed person.)
> >>
> >> Just clarifying. Thanks in advance!
> >>
> >> Mark
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 5:08 PM, R. M. Cleminson 
> >> <rmcleminson at post.sk>wrote:
> >>
> >>> A quick look at the Russian National Corpus makes it quite clear 
> >>> that учить
> >>> языку means to teach a language and учить язык means to learn a 
> >>> language.
> >>> There do not seem to be any instances of ambiguity.
> >>>
> >>> -
> >
> > 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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