Platonov 'Never to return'

[Wayles Browne]

Possibly there is less oddness here than Robert Chandler suspects.
The past perfective gerund is, in fact, not always past, though it is
perfective. The Academy of Sciences' Russkaja grammatika, vol. 1,
1980, section 1589, points out that the perfective gerund in -v or -vshi
can express:
  a previous action (ostanovivshis', skazal 'having stopped,
he said'),
or an accompanying action (sidit, naxmurivshis' 'he sits, frowning'),
or a following action (rasstegnul sjurtuk, otkryv rubaxu navypusk
'he unbuttened his coat, exposing his shirt which was outside his
trousers').
The translations are mine, but I think they're logical; you couldn't
have seen his shirt until after he unbuttoned his coat.
A.I.Isachenko also discusses the "non-previousness" use of the
perfective gerund in Grammaticheskij stroj russkogo jazyka, vol. II,
Bratislava 1960, pages 534-539. He points out that placing this
gerund after the main verb favors such an interpretation, and
gives an example from Gogol':
Ganna pospeshno vletela v xatu, zaxlopnuv za soboju dver'.
Logically, says Isachenko, she had to rush in first and only then
could she slam the door after her.
Thus the translation would be: She rushed into the house,
slamming (rather than: after slamming, or after having slammed)
the door behind her.
So perhaps Chandler's "utterly normal" translation of Platonov's
sentence is the one to use.

At 12:41 PM +0100 4/9/08, Robert Chandler wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Platonov does something odd with time in this passage from the very end of
>KOTLOVAN. Zhachev, the speaker, is in the barak, which is, I think, being
>treated as somewhere separate from the kotlovan itself.
>
>­ íš Ê ’˔˯¸, —ÚÓ þ ەӔ ËÏÔ•ËýÎËÁÏý, ý ÍÓÏÏÛÌËÁÏ ­  ›ÚÓ ”ÂÚÒÍÓ ”ÂÎÓ, Áý
>ÚÓ þ Ë çýÒڜ Μ·ËÎ... èÓÈ”Û ÒÂȗýÒ Ìý ԕӘý̸  ÚӒý•Ë˜ý èý¯ÍËÌý Û·¸œ.
>
>à Üý—Â’ ÛÔÓÎÁ ’ “Ó•Ó”, ·ÓΠÛÊ ÌËÍӓ”ý Ì ’ÓÁ’•ýÚ˒¯ËÒ¸ Ìý ÍÓÚÎӒýÌ.
>I Zhachev upolz v gorod, bolee uzhe nikogda ne vozvrativshis¹ na kotlovan.
>
>There is clearly something paradoxical about this use of the past perfective
>gerund.
>
>At present we have:
>ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, never to return to the foundation
>pit.¹
>But that is utterly normal, which the Russian clearly isn¹t.
>Another possibility is Œnever having returned to the foundation pit¹. But
>that too, I think, oversimplifies the meaning?
>
>The following versions are probably the closest, but they seem rather fussy.
>The original seems much cleaner!
>ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, never again to have gone back to
>  the foundation pit.¹
>ŒAnd Zhachev crawled away into the city, not once to have gone back to the
>foundation pit.¹
>
>The last seems to me the least bad, but can anyone suggest anything better?
>
>Best wishes,
>
R.


-- 

Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.

tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu

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