# Perfective of jet



## sergueison

Russian has ехать and поехать. Jet is imperfective. Is there an analog to the Russian поехать?


----------



## Emys

My dictionary says "odjet". It means "to leave".


----------



## sergueison

Thank you, Emys!

So what's the best way to say "Tomorrow I will go to Prague" (rather than "Tomorrow I will be going to Prague")? Zítra odjedu do Prahy?


----------



## sergueison

By the way, Russian also has уехать and отъехать. They both emphasize the idea of leaving, and отъехать should be a direct analog to odjet. To express the neutral idea of going (by car, etc.) Russian uses поехать. Is odjet "neutral" in this sense?


----------



## Emys

I don't speak Russian, I only copied it to my dictionary.

Zítra pojedu do Prahy. - Tomorrow I will go to Prague.
Zítra odjedu do Prahy. - Tomorrow I will leave for Prague.
Pojedu is perfect future tense of "jet". It's irregular.


----------



## Enquiring Mind

A wide-open question, sergueison, complicated by the fact that we're discussing differences between the use of verbs of motion in Russian and Czech in a third language - English.  It would also require someone better versed than me in linguistics to give a well-informed reply, but I'll try and scratch the surface. 

You asked if there's an analog (ue - BE ) to the Russian поехать, and I suppose the answer is, in theory, yes _in specific contexts in which forms of поехать would be used in Russian_, particularly in the future perfective, as in _zítra pojedu do Prahy_.  There is, in Czech, the verb pojet, but it's not the equivalent of поехать in many contexts, because the Czech prefix po, particularly in the past tense (pojeli jsme) and infinitive (pojet), tends to convey a different meaning than по as a perfective prefix in Russian. As always, context is everything, so it might not be very helpful to consider individual phrases out of context.  I'm not a native Czech speaker, so perhaps natives will correct me if my examples are wrong.

Take the following examples:
(Source) О том, почему мы решили *поехать* в Италию.
Czech: Proč jsme se rozhodli *jet *do Itálie.
I don't think you would normally say *pojet do Itálie*  here.

Or take this example (it's jít/пойти, not jet/поехать, but the principle is the same):
Oтец уже *пошёл* домой ([My] father has [already] gone home)
Otec už *šel *domů.
Again, you can't say *... už pošel domů*  here.  

Я принял ванну, *пошел* смотреть город и заблюдился.
Vykoupal jsem se, *šel jsem* si prohlédnout město, a zabloudil jsem.
Again, you can't say ... *pošel jsem* si prohlédnout město  here.


----------



## sergueison

Thank, EM, your input concerning the past tense of pojet is very valuable.

By the way, my otherwise thourough dictionary has no entry for pojet (unlike jet). Perhaps, unlike in Russian, in Czech pojedu is just the future perfective of jet, and pojet is not an independent verb?


----------



## bibax

The verb pojeti has only the indicative present (pojedu, pojedeš, ... - future sense) and imperative (pojeď!, ...). Other forms are not in use.

The verb pojíti has two sets of forms, with different meaning:

1. půjdu, půjdeš, ... (future of jíti), pojď!, ...
2. pojdu, pojdeš, ..., pojdi!, ..., pošel, ... - the meaning is to die, to perish (about animals, e.g. můj pes pošel)

There is also popojeti (to move/drive on a bit) and popojíti (to walk on a few steps).


----------



## Enquiring Mind

sergueison said:


> Perhaps, unlike in Russian, in Czech pojedu is just the future perfective of jet, and pojet is not an independent verb?



Pojedu is the future *tense* of the determinate verb jet, but not a future *perfective* in aspect, because, as Karel Tahal says in this online grammar (Section 17, page 55): "All the four verbs, i.e. jít, jet, chodit, jezdit, are imperfective (= nedokonavé). None of them has a perfective counterpart, i.e they are “imperfectiva tantum“.  

You are right about pojet. It isn't an independent verb.  When you find "po" as a prefix, it modifies the meaning of the verb, but it doesn't make the verb perfective. 

If you want to go even deeper, there's a detailed discussion in this  University of  Tromsø thesis on the prefixes na- and po- in Czech, and  the different ways in which these prepositions modify the meaning of the  verb.  In particular, in 2.2.2.1 the author discusses the  prefix po- with verbs of directed motion or transfer jít, jet, letět,  nést, vézt etc. 
"In some Slavic languages," the author Kateřina  Součková says, "there is an interesting opposition within verbs of  motion, namely the opposition directed – non-directed... *Both kinds of  verbs are imperfective*..."

There's also a useful page here  on verbs of motion in Czech, where it says, inter alia, "Both  determinate and indeterminate verbs are aspectually imperfective.  *Determinate verbs serve the function of a perfective verb* to indicate a  completed event of motion in the past tense, inception of motion in the  future via the po- forms, and for the purposes of an infinitive..."

Just to complicate matters, the terminology among different grammarians is not consistent. Tahal uses the terms _particular/usual_, Součková uses the terms _directed/non-directed_, others say _determinate/indeterminate, _and I've also come across terms like _unidirectional/omnidirectional_ - they are all describing the difference between chodit and jít, jezdit and jet.


----------



## sergueison

Thank you, EM. The page on verbs in motion in Czech that you quote made the grammar abundantly clear to me. From reading the rest of the file, it looks like this is the only difference between Cz and Ru as far as aspect of verbs of motion is concerned . That is

šel jsem do divadla = я *по*шел в театр
Když jsem šel do divadla = когда я шел в театр

The distinction between determinate and indeterminate verbs looks the same in both languages.


----------

