Thread: 1984 intro - perfective/imperfective confusion

Был холодный ясный апрельский день, и часы пробили тринадцать. Уткнув подбородок в грудь, чтобы спастись от злого ветра, Уинстон Смит торопливо шмыгнул за стеклянную дверь жилого дома «Победа», но все-таки впустил за собой вихрь зернистой пыли.

To begin, I have to say that Perfective and Imperfective have both been the bane of my life since I was introduced to the concept some years ago. I've recently tried to retackle Russian and I still find it confusing.

As far as I am aware to this point, Perfective and Imperfect are at the top tier so to speak (top of the tree which has many branches) and while everything we say even in english could itself be identified as being imperfective or perfective it is somewhere further down the branch (past perfect, which in essence is in the perfective category, further down the tree?) whereas in Russian a verb can express in the most simple terms (without other words to tie down if it habitatual, perfect etc...) perfective or imperfective.

First off, sound right?

Secondly, In the quote from the book, first we see "the clock strikes 13 (Perfective)": it happened in the past and it was an event with no information about things that were happening during its occurance so I guess that makes sense to me.

However we then have "in order to escape the evil wind" curiously (to me) in the imperfective. Уткнув however is perfective... So he has done this action in the past however is it that it will always have the effect of escaping any evil wind? it is the effect this action always has? which is why it is imperfective? I might have assumed "escape" would be perfective due to the fact he is doing it to escape a particular wind but I would like someone to explain that to me.

The last point is шмыгнул is imperfective, and I reasoned with myself this is because it describes what happens AS he does this, so it is dealing with the inside of the event as he впустил something in as he was шмыгнул'ing.

Just wanted to have someone destroy, or check my logic. Thanks in advance. Джейк.

P.S. my branch tree theory from wiki: "English is an example of a language with no general imperfective. The English progressive is used to describe ongoing events such as "The rain was beating down". Habitual situations do not have their own verb form, but the construction "used to" conveys past habitual action, as in "I used to ski". Unlike in languages with a general imperfective, in English the simple past tense can be used for situations presented as ongoing, such as "The rain beat down continuously through the night"."

ShakeyX

For me, both спастись and шмыгнул are perfective.

I'm sorry I've been reading Yandex Slovari all wrong, could I still get a pass on whether I'm thinking about it the right way in the first part

-and also what does the fact that впустил is imperfective and шмыгнул is perfective mean? He dashed to the door "letting" in the dust? If they were both perfective would it be.. he dashed and then let in, in two seperate steps?

Sorry, ShakeyX, but впустил is perferctive too. The author just describes the events in the past in the succession.

I try to think of it as a one time unrepeated action that was completed in the past or will be completed in the future is perfective. An action happening now, or repeated in the past, or will be repeated again in the future is imperfective.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Scott

Oh ffs :P When I enter впустил it returns this result:

впускать
Глагол
(кого-л./что-л.) несовер. - впускать; совер. - впустить

leaving me to believe it was imperfective but I can see that it is the perfective now, by looking at the -ил rather than -ал at the end of the past verb.