On the Origin of Slavic Prefixed Imperfective Motion Verbs

Abstract

This paper discusses the prefixation of motion verbs in Late Common Slavic, as evidenced primarily in Old Church Slavic, and argues that the perfectivizing effect of prefixation was attenuated in determinate motion verbs. Usage of prefixed determinate motion verbs in Old Church Slavic texts in contexts where they arguably express ongoing actions is interpreted as relic usage from a time when they were anaspectual. An attenuation of the perfectivizing effect of prefixes on determinate motion verbs raises the question of the pairing of these verbs with prefixed imperfective motion verbs of the prichoditi type. It is argued that Regnéll's (1944) theory of the creation of prichoditi-type imperfective motion verbs based on an analogy with determinate: indeterminate pairs of motion verbs is inaccurate, and that prichoditi-type motion verbs very possibly existed prior to their aspectual pairing with prefixed determinate motion verbs. Two possible paths of derivation of these verbs are then hypothesized: (1) prefixation of mannerof- motion verbs with no perfectivizing effect (pri- + choditi); (2) suffixation of deverbal nouns (prichod- + -iti) likewise leading to no perfectivization. Both types may have coexisted.