The Single-Stem Verb System Revisited

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore some ways in which current linguistic thinking about Russian can be adapted and applied to the teaching of Russian. The questions of how, to what degree, and even whether linguistic explanations can or should be adapted to language pedagogy are not easy to give answers to. Surely no one would say a priori that each new linguistic advance should be incorporated into the teaching of Russian: linguistic analyses are much too fragile and transitory for that; in addition, they are often highly inappropriate as devices for human language-learners. Just as surely, though, no one would say that the results of linguistic investigation-which are often likely to differ from the traditionally accepted analysis of a particular problem in Russian-should be rejected out of hand as theoretical bogs to be avoided by language teachers: linguistic analysis can often point up underlying regularities or principles which can profitably be learned by language students. Between these two extremes is a middle ground where linguistic insights can be evaluated, each on its own merits, as possible material for improving the quality of language instruction by presenting the facts of a language to the student in a simpler, better-organized, and/or more accessible form. If an idea seems promising after this evaluation, it should of course be carefully tested in practice before we rush forth to proclaim it as the new gospel. At the same time, the novelty or unorthodoxy of a new explanation of a familiar topic-or the fact that it comes from a discipline outside language pedagogy, namely, linguistics-should not be held as a reason against its adoption. Nor should the language teacher feel that a linguistic analysis, if it is to be used at all, must be taken exactly as is. It goes without saying that a linguistic description, being designed to fit the needs of linguistics, may not be suitable for pedagogical purposes without reworking, and I referred earlier to ADAPTING linguistic results to pedagogy rather than embracing them blindly. With these considerations in mind I would like to turn to a discussion of the single-stem verb system in Russian. Twenty-seven years have passed since Roman Jakobson published his description of Russian conjugation.' Jakobson's analysis is unquestionably