# проездит/проедет



## Catullus91

Hi. I'm having some difficulty with understanding the nuances of the Russian verb of motion in this case.

From Assimil's "Perfectionnement Russe"

сколько раз говорила мне твоя тётя: давно пора новыю машину купить, а я ей каждый раз отвечал: “она ещё десять лет *проездит*”

Why is this проездит instead of проедет? What would be the difference in meaning if the latter were used?

Thanks a lot for any help!


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## Rosett

Russian *проедет* in the given context may be used with mileage only. It means "*to drive *(*X km*)."
*Проездит* in the same context can be used with both, either mileage or time. It means "*to sustain *(*X km *_or_* Y hours/years*)."


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## abracadabra!

Проедет, if the driving is a part of the same action. Проездит, if it belongs to many different actions. So, indeed, проедет works with mileage, because gaining mileage is one action, but does not with years, because, you know, the car sometimes stops. If the car is not going to stop throughout those years, then проедет works with years, too. Ездить/ехать is like ходить/идти.


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## Q-cumber

Hi! The perfective verb "проездить" has two particular meanings:
- to spend a certain amount of money on trips (informal)
"За неделю он проездил пятьдесят долларов на метро".

-to spend some particular time on the road
"Я проездил по магазинам целый день, но подарка (подарок) так и не купил".

"Проехать" also have multiple meanings:
-to miss some stop/ to forget to stop
"Троллейбус проехал остановку."   "Ты проехал (пропустил)  поворот!"  (You have missed /passed the turn!)

-to pass through/ to drive through
""Мы проехали через город не останавливаясь. "

-to cover a certain distance
"Машина проехала ещё десять километров и остановилась. "

So, when estimating a car's potential, we usually say either "эта машина ещё сто тысяч (километров) проедет" or "эта машина ещё лет пять проездит". The latter wording is colloquial and appropriate for informal use only.


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## Ben Jamin

Can't we just say that Ездить is a _frequentantive_ verb, while ехать is _progressive? _It is difficult to render a frequentative meaning in English without using a wordy description.


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## Catullus91

Ben Jamin said:


> Can't we just say that Ездить is a _frequentantive_ verb, while ехать is _progressive? _It is difficult to render a frequentative meaning in English without using a wordy description.



I suspected something like that. So for a related example (this comes right after the sentence I quoted in my first post):
Доездились! Браво!

So this is a _frequentative_ verb rendered _perfective_ by the prefix and means something like (a completed number of repeated discontinuous actions)? 
доехались, in contrast, is a _progressive_ verb rendered _perfective _by the prefix and means something like (a complete single continuous action)?


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## Sobakus

Catullus91 said:


> I suspected something like that. So for a related example (this comes right after the sentence I quoted in my first post):
> Доездились! Браво!
> 
> So this is a _frequentative_ verb rendered _perfective_ by the prefix and means something like (a completed number of repeated discontinuous actions)?
> доехались, in contrast, is a _progressive_ verb rendered _perfective _by the prefix and means something like (a complete single continuous action)?


Yes, you're absolutely right (assuming there was an established verb _доехать_*ся*, where the reflexive particle expresses the mediopassive but is redundant as the verb can never be transitive, unlike _доездить_ in the meanings "to ride to exhaustion" or "to finish driving/riding").


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## abracadabra!

Catullus91 said:


> So this is a _frequentative_ verb rendered _perfective_ by the prefix and means something like (a completed number of repeated discontinuous actions)?
> доехались, in contrast, is a _progressive_ verb rendered _perfective _by the prefix and means something like (a complete single continuous action)?


I'd suggest not to pay attention to the magic of labels and instead use examples. General behavior of verbs is something that can't be explained rationally, I believe. At least, not on the grounds of _meanings_ that verbs might have. (But what other ground can we have?) However, their general behavior can be grasped through experience. That is what examples serve for. Another example, which disproves this generalization: я еду probably means I have a goal, я езжу probably means I have none, *if* these verbs mean the same physical action. (Say, я еду по городу.) Beware that this explanation is also not correct (I may also not have a goal and still ехать, not ездить), but it somehow still helps understand one aspect of the difference. I believe, this topic should have been discussed here and in other places so many times and in such detail that probably the best we can do is stick to the rules and discuss specific examples in context...


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## Ben Jamin

abracadabra! said:


> I'd suggest not to pay attention to the magic of labels and instead use examples. General behavior of verbs is something that can't be explained rationally, I believe. At least, not on the grounds of _meanings_ that verbs might have. (But what other ground can we have?) However, their general behavior can be grasped through experience. That is what examples serve for. Another example, which disproves this generalization: я еду probably means I have a goal, я езжу probably means I have none, *if* these verbs mean the same physical action. (Say, я еду по городу.) Beware that this explanation is also not correct (I may also not have a goal and still ехать, not ездить), but it somehow still helps understand one aspect of the difference. I believe, this topic should have been discussed here and in other places so many times and in such detail that probably the best we can do is stick to the rules and discuss specific examples in context...


How does the goal come here? It was not mentioned in the previous posts.


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## abracadabra!

It's a part of the discussion of the verb itself... Just to make an example of how difficult it is to discuss words generally... Once you form a rule, that rule is going to be disproved or at least dishonored... Say, я проездил and я проехал can also mean the same physical action, in which case the count of actions, suggested earlier as a general rule, doesn't work...


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> It's a part of the discussion of the verb itself... Just to make an example of how difficult it is to discuss words generally... Once you form a rule, that rule is going to be disproved or at least dishonored... Say, я проездил and я проехал can also mean the same physical action, in which case the count of actions, suggested earlier as a general rule, doesn't work...


Could you please provide an example of such?


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## abracadabra!

Я проездил полчаса по городу, пока не попал в универмаг. Я проехал до самого парка Освобождения, пока не попал в универмаг. The physical action is the same, isn't it? In short: я проехал/проездил по городу. But other words often change the context in ways that have nothing to do with the physical structure of the action, yet make one or the word more or less appropriate, or even not appropriate at all. Sure, the difference here can still be explained, but this explanation will be no more general, and so on...


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> Я проездил полчаса по городу, пока не попал в универмаг. Я проехал до самого парка Освобождения, пока не попал в универмаг. The physical action is the same, isn't it? In short: я проехал/проездил по городу. But other words often change the context in ways that have nothing to do with the physical structure of the action, yet make one or the word more or less appropriate, or even not appropriate at all. Sure, the difference here can still be explained, but this explanation will be no more general, and so on...


I think you're mixing up reality and language here. Language describes reality, it does not correspond to it. It can describe different actions by one word or one action by different words depending on context.

In our case, the action of driving is either seen as multiple discrete actions ("I drove there, then I drove to another place") or as one continuous action ("I drove there"). This has nothing to do with the physical world – it has only to do with how the action is viewed by the speaker.

That said, I can't seem to understand what you were trying to say in your second example. I don't think you can use the unidirectional verb _*проехать*_ with the adverb *пока *– the verb means a completed continuous action while the adverb means it was broken up by something.

In English, to me it reads as "I reached the park until I got to the supermarket" – the temporal relationship is obviously wrong because the park is where the action of driving ends, and a new action has to follow: «Я проехал до парка, пока не вспомнил, что забыл дома чемодан.»


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## Catullus91

Reviewing this example, I became slightly confused. 

Could *будет проезжать *be used instead of *проездит* in this example? Would *будет проезжать *not work because of the "десять лет" ?

сколько раз говорила мне твоя тётя: давно пора новыю машину купить, а я ей каждый раз отвечал: “она ещё десять лет *проездит*”


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## Maroseika

Catullus91 said:


> Could *будет проезжать *be used instead of *проездит* in this example? Would *будет проезжать *not work because of the "десять лет" ?


No, instead of проездит you can say only будет (сможет) ездить. 
Проезжать and проездить are not just two forms of one verb. These are two different verbs with two different spheres of meanings. In particluar, проезжать is used with time only like:
Это очень большой город, мы будем проезжать его полтора часа. (= ехать по нему полтора часа).
More typically проезжать is used for distance per time:
Поедем быстро, будем проезжать по 140 километров за час.

Unlike this, проездить is often used with the time like in your example:
Мы проездим (проходим, пробе́гаем, проблуждаем) два часа в поисках заправки.
Ты зря проездишь целый день и ничего не найдешь.
Исправный самолет легко пролетает 20 и даже 30 лет.


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## Rosett

Maroseika said:


> Исправный самолет легко пролетает 20 и даже 30 лет.


You can't say that, as an exception. It has to be: "Исправный самолёт легко прослужит 20 и даже 30 лет".
However, you can say: "Космонавты пролетают на орбите ещё месяц".


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## Maroseika

Rosett said:


> You can't say that, as an exception. It has to be: "Исправный самолет легко прослужит 20 и даже 30 лет".


Maybe my example is ambiguous because of the homonymous Present (Imperfect) and Future (Perfect) forms. I meant the latter, like in:
При правильном обслуживании этот самолет пролетает еще 10 лет.


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## Rosett

Maroseika said:


> Maybe my example is ambiguous because of the homonymous Present (Imperfect) and Future (Perfect) forms. I meant the latter, like in:
> При правильном обслуживании этот самолет пролетает еще 10 лет.


No, it just because the flight hours are indeed intermittent, that makes difference with presumably uninterrupted service years. But you can say: "При правильном обслуживании этот самолёт налетает ещё 1000 часов", because flight hours add for the record, as if in: "Налёт экипажа составил 1000 часов". "Пролетать/пролёт" are just not right words here.

(Please re-enforce the strict "ё" in our posts).


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## Maroseika

Rosett said:


> No, it just because the flight hours are indeed intermittent, that makes difference with presumably uninterrupted service years.



I dare to disagree, but I hope the main idea of using пролетать, проездить, пробе́гать is clear now.


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## Q-cumber

Rosett said:


> No, it just because the flight hours are indeed intermittent, that makes difference with presumably uninterrupted service years. But you can say: "При правильном обслуживании этот самолёт налетает ещё 1000 часов", because flight hours add for the record, as if in: "Налёт экипажа составил 1000 часов". "Пролетать/пролёт" are just not right words here.
> 
> (Please re-enforce the strict "ё" in our posts).


I don't think so. In my opinion, the Maroseika's sentence sounds pretty smooth and natural. I'm sorry, but your sample phrase ("при правильном обслуживании этот самолёт налетает ещё 1000 часов") doesn't make much sense to me, although "налёт" is the correct technical term. I don't know if this matters, but I've got a civil aviation engineering degree.


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## Catullus91

Maroseika said:


> No, instead of проездит you can say only будет (сможет) ездить.
> Проезжать and проездить are not just two forms of one verb. These are two different verbs with two different spheres of meanings. In particluar, проезжать is used with time only like:
> Это очень большой город, мы будем проезжать его полтора часа. (= ехать по нему полтора часа).
> More typically проезжать is used for distance per time:
> Поедем быстро, будем проезжать по 140 километров за час.
> 
> Unlike this, проездить is often used with the time like in your example:
> Мы проездим (проходим, пробе́гаем, проблуждаем) два часа в поисках заправки.
> Ты зря проездишь целый день и ничего не найдешь.
> Исправный самолет легко пролетает 20 и даже 30 лет.



I'm still not entirely clear on the difference. Furthermore, are there in fact four possible prefixed verbs of motion?
1: Indefinite (imperfective) проезжать
2: Indefinite (perfective) проездить
3: Definite (imperfective) ???
4: Definite (perfective) проехать


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## Q-cumber

Catullus91 said:


> I'm still not entirely clear on the difference. Furthermore, are there in fact four possible prefixed verbs of motion?
> 1: Indefinite (imperfective) проезжать
> 2: Indefinite (perfective) проездить
> 3: Definite (imperfective) ???
> 4: Definite (perfective) проехать


3. Ехать (without the 'perfective' -про prefix) 

By the way, "ладно, проехали" (idiom) - 'forget it', 'never mind'.

-Извини, я вчера погорячился, наговорил лишнего. 
-Ладно, проехали.  (Apologies accepted)


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## Sobakus

Catullus91 said:


> I'm still not entirely clear on the difference. Furthermore, are there in fact four possible prefixed verbs of motion?
> 1: Indefinite (imperfective) проезжать
> 2: Indefinite (perfective) проездить
> 3: Definite (imperfective) ???
> 4: Definite (perfective) проехать


The difference is that *проезжать *has the meaning "to pass something/cover some distance by vehicle", and its perfective pair is *проехать*. *Проездить* "to spend some time moving by vehicle" has *ездить *for its imperfective pair.

So:
1. Definite impf. forms prefixed perfectives: *е́хать* -> *прое́хать*; *идти́ *-> *пройти́*; *плы́ть *-> *доплы́ть*; *бежа́ть *-> *отбежа́ть*

2. These perfectives all have specific prefix-defined meanings requiring another verb to express them in the imperfective, mostly formed from the indefinite stem: *прое́хать *-> *проезжа́ть*, *пройти́ *-> *проходи́ть*; *отбежа́ть *-> *отбега́ть*; *доплы́ть *-> *доплыва́ть*
Note the normal imperfective-forming suffix *-ива/ыва-* used in the latter instead of the indef. stem to avoid homonymy with #3.

3. The indefinite impf. also wants a perfective pair, however, and so it has no choice but to form it from itself: *е́здить *-> *прое́здить*, *ходи́ть *-> *проходи́ть*, *бе́гать *-> *отбе́гать*; *пла́вать *-> *пропла́вать*
As you can see, in some cases it results in 100% homophony, in others there's a different suffix or stress, but the formation is straightforward.

I have no doubt that this looks confusing, but in the context of your question what you need to take away from it is that prefixed imperfectives like *будет проезжа́ть/проходи́ть/сбега́ть/доплыва́ть* are always aspectual pairs to definite perfectives and retain the meaning of future completeness, so to express a neutral multidirectional meaning you need the unprefixed indefinite verb.


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## Catullus91

Thanks. So there are only three possible prefixed iterations of each verb of motion? What's the difference in meaning between each of them?


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## Sobakus

Catullus91 said:


> Thanks. So there are only three possible prefixed iterations of each verb of motion? What's the difference in meaning between each of them?


This entirely depends on the prefix, and besides, some aspect/meaning combinations just don't make sense. In addition, there's the *по*-/*за*- (1 per verb) meaning "to start moving" which forms no imperfectives for semantic reasons except for the defective *поезжать*. For your verb, to repeat:

*ехать *"to ride somewhere" –* проехать *"to ride past successfully"
*проехать* "to ride past successfully" – *проезжать* "to be in the process of riding past successfully"
*ездить* "to ride around/regularly" – *проездить* "to complete the act of riding around/regularly, to spend some time doing it"


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## Catullus91

Ok. That helps tremendously. So in the example sentence:

сколько раз говорила мне твоя тётя: давно пора новыю машину купить, а я ей каждый раз отвечал: “она ещё десять лет *проездит*”
*проездит* works because the stress is on the completion of the ride (which is regular/repeated)


сколько раз говорила мне твоя тётя: давно пора новыю машину купить, а я ей каждый раз отвечал: “она ещё десять лет* будет проезжать  
будет проезжать* doesn't work because the stress is on the process of the ride, rather than the result.


Now does *проезжать *carry a frequentative sense, like *проездит*, or does only refer to the process of riding in a single instance? If so, would that in fact be the reason why it couldn't replace *проездит* in the sample sentence?


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## Sobakus

It can carry a frequentative sense contextually: «Я каждый день *проезжаю *одно и то же дерево». It can't, however, replace *проездит* in any context because it has a fundamentally different meaning: not that of spending some time/regulalrly doing regular trips, but that of spending some time/regularly driving past something: «Я буду ещё десять лет каждый день *проезжать *мимо этого дерева»/«Когда я *проезжал *мимо этого дерева, впереди упал метеорит». It's two different meanings of the prefix differentiated by the stem.

p.s.: нов*у*ю.


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## Catullus91

Sobakus said:


> not that of spending some time/regulalrly doing regular trips, but that of spending some time/regularly driving past something:


That's because it comes from a definite verb of motion right?


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## Sobakus

Catullus91 said:


> That's because it comes from a definite verb of motion right?


It's formed from the indefinite stem, but forms a pair to the perfective definite verb *проехать* as explained in #23.2.

My remark on the meaning of the prefix is not quite correct though: *проехать* and its pair *проезжать* also have the meaning "to spend time covering a distance", but it differs from *проездить* in being definite.


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## Rosett

Q-cumber said:


> I don't know if this matters, but I've got a civil aviation engineering degree.


If so, then you might consider to go back to your drawing board. "Пролетает" in the given phrase is not just silly in plain Russian, it's terrible and technically incorrect. Below are A few technically correct examples in Russian:
*Программа PlaneParts - Gulfstream*
Если известно, сколько часов самолет налетает в календарном году, запланировать бюджет на запчасти не ...
*Ryanair займется корпоративными перевозками | Статьи и обзоры - JETS.ru*
Mar 11, 2016 - В Ryanair предпочли не раскрывать, сколько часов, по ее оценке, самолет налетает в первый год ...
*Новый ИЛ-86 "Уральских Авиалиний" поставят на курортные направления / Россия - Travel.ru*
Mobile-friendly - Mar 5, 2005 - ... заверяют руководители "Уральских авиалиний", самолёт прослужит ещё как минимум 25 лет.
*Самолет вернулся в Нижегородский кремль - Нижегородская газета Ленинская смена ...*
www.lensmena.ru › arhin › numb › dela
... истории авиазавода «Сокол» Юрий Агафонов. – Надеемся, что самолет прослужит еще года три-четыре.


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## Q-cumber

Rosett said:


> If so, then you might want to go back to your drawing board. "Пролетает" in the given phrase is not just silly in plain Russian, it's terrible and technically incorrect. A few technically correct examples are given below:
> *Программа PlaneParts - Gulfstream*
> Если известно, сколько часов самолет налетает в календарном году, запланировать бюджет на запчасти не ...
> *Ryanair займется корпоративными перевозками | Статьи и обзоры - JETS.ru*
> Mar 11, 2016 - В Ryanair предпочли не раскрывать, сколько часов, по ее оценке, самолет налетает в первый год ...


 Unfortunately I have no drawing board. Never had one. I'm in another business.  
There's nothing wrong with the word "налетает" itself. The sentences that you are referring to are also fine. At to the Maroseika's sample phrase, it implies the same  standard  colloquial  pattern as in "эта машина ещё лет десять проездит / эта посудина ещё лет десять проплавает / этот крепкий старик ещё лет тридцать проживёт" and so on. Frankly I don't really understand why are you trying to analyze this phrase from the technical standpoint. It's all pure colloquial.
   The problem with your variant is that you mix technical and colloquial wordings and these don't fit each other well.

По нашим оценкам, самолёт налетает 1000 часов до конца года. Поэтому мы будем планировать капремонт двигателей на следующий год. 

При правильном обслуживании этот самолёт налетает ещё 1000 часов.  The presence of the tech terms makes me attribute the whole sentence as technical. Then I'm getting puzzled. What does "правильное обслуживание" mean here? 'Improper maintenance ' isn't something we expect to see in aviation, since all the service procedures are described in the appropriate documents and shall be strictly followed. "Налетает ещё 1000 часов"? Before the next maintenance? Within a certain period of time?


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## Quernon

I'm also reading Perfectionnement Russe and I was asking myself the same question.
2 things bother me:

1) I thought adding a prefix to an indefinite verb created an imperfective verb.
But проездить is perfective so this proves the rule wrong or is that an exception?

2) I thought the root of ездить became езжать whenever a prefix was added...so this is an exception as well?


PS: Why are you reading a French-Russian method if you're from the US?


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## Awwal12

Quernon said:


> 2) I thought the root of ездить became езжать whenever a prefix was added...so this is an exception as well?


No. That alteration happens only when you form an *imperfective verb* from that multidirectional ("indefinite") base (-езд-) with some *spatial prefix*. As long as the prefix doesn't have spatial meaning, the alteration doesn't occur - and the resulted verb becomes perfective. So we have imperfective заезжать куда-л. (an imperfective pair for заехать куда-л.) and perfective заездить кого-л. (до какого-л. состояния) in the same time - which has, in theory at least, an imperfective pair "заезживать".

Cf. also проехать (что-л.) - проезжать (что-л.) - проездить (какое-л. время), забежа́ть - забега́ть - забе́гать (to start running, perf.), объе́хать - объезжа́ть - объе́здить (лошадь) - объе́зживать, etc.

In general, Russian aspectology is a mess.


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## Sobakus

Quernon said:


> I'm also reading Perfectionnement Russe and I was asking myself the same question.
> 2 things bother me:
> 
> 1) I thought adding a prefix to an indefinite verb created an imperfective verb.
> But проездить is perfective so this proves the rule wrong or is that an exception?


Check post #23. The logic is exactly the opposite: you don't form most of those verbs yourself but work with what you have (#23.2). For _е́здить, пла́вать, бе́гать _and some others, an extra frequentative stem _езжа́-, плыва́-, бега́- _happens to be available to form the prefixed unidirectional imperfective. For others, it happens to be homophonous the multidirectional perfective (_проходи́ть - проходи́ть, сгоня́ть - сгоня́ть, налета́ть - налета́ть)_ - in the first case, blatantly in face of the fact that the frequentative stem _хажива- _is available. The latter is occupied by the explicitly frequentative _прохаживать _"to pass often; to take for a stroll" that was apparently deemed more important to distinguish from _проходить_ "to be in the process of passing; to pass more than once".

In general it seems less than half end up being homophonous, and the regular outcome of sticking a prefix onto a normal multidirectional verb of motion, as with other verbs, is a perfective verb (#23.3). An imperfective from such a verb is the result of the verb having no extra stems.


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## Quernon

Awwal12 said:


> No. That alteration happens only when you form an *imperfective verb* from that multidirectional ("indefinite") base (-езд-) with some *spatial prefix*. As long as the prefix doesn't have spatial meaning, the alteration doesn't occur - and the resulted verb becomes perfective. So we have imperfective заезжать куда-л. (an imperfective pair for заехать куда-л.) and perfective заездить кого-л. (до какого-л. состояния) in the same time - which has, in theory at least, an imperfective pair "заезживать".
> 
> Cf. also проехать (что-л.) - проезжать (что-л.) - проездить (какое-л. время), забежа́ть - забега́ть - забе́гать (to start running, perf.), объе́хать - объезжа́ть - объе́здить (лошадь) - объе́зживать, etc.
> 
> In general, Russian aspectology is a mess.




Thank you for your help, it’s greatly appreciated. French + Latin speaker here…finding Russian harder than Latin…

1) So the prefix *про *in* проездит *isn’t spatial then?

2) Is there a spatial *про *and a non-spacial* про* for verbs of motions? How can I tell them apart?

3) Are there two kinds of *за* and two kinds of *об* as well?


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## Quernon

Sobakus said:


> the regular outcome of sticking a prefix onto a normal multidirectional verb of motion, as with other verbs, is a perfective verb (#23.3). An imperfective from such a verb is the result of the verb having no extra stems.



Thank you and I'm sorry if it seems like I don't understand what was discussed earlier in answer to the original post.

A) So adding в- вы- при- у- под- от- вз- с- раз- пере- об- to *езди́ть* (indefinite) will most likely result in a perfective verb? Until now I thought this would create an Imperfective.

B) So any Indefinite can create both an Imperfective and a Perfective?

C) And can a any Definite create both an Imperfective and a Perfective?

I know B and C are the exact same questions asked in #21 but it's not clear in my mind.


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## Sobakus

Quernon said:


> Thank you and I'm sorry if it seems like I don't understand what was discussed earlier in answer to the original post.
> 
> A) So adding в- вы- при- у- под- от- вз- с- раз- пере- об- to *езди́ть* (indefinite) will most likely result in a perfective verb? Until now I thought this would create an Imperfective.


Not quite - it can only create a Perfective verb - for forming prefixed Imperfectives there's a separate frequentative stem _езжа-_.


> B) So any Indefinite can create both an Imperfective and a Perfective?


Not if there's a separate stem for creating prefixed Imperfective verbs, as in the above example. Then the indefinite stem forms the Perfective and the frequentative stem forms the Imperfective.


> C) And can a any Definite create both an Imperfective and a Perfective?


Sticking a prefix to a unidirectional/definite Imperfective always results in a unidirectional/definite Perfective verb.

I must say again that you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. It doesn't matter what stem you're sticking the prefix to, what matters is what verb you're creating an aspectual pair for. Prefixed Imperfectives might be formed from the indefinite stem, or from a separate frequentative stem, but they form an aspectual pair to definite Perfective verbs as explained in #23.2 and #25.


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## Awwal12

Quernon said:


> Thank you for your help, it’s greatly appreciated. French + Latin speaker here…finding Russian harder than Latin…
> 1) So the prefix *про *in* проездит *isn’t spatial then?


Well, it quite obviously isn't - "проездить" doesn't mean moving _through_ or _along_ something (except maybe time - but hey, it isn't a _spatial_ meaning already, is it? )



Quernon said:


> 2) Is there a spatial *про *and a non-spacial* про* for verbs of motions? How can I tell them apart?


Solely by their semantics, of course. Spatial prefixes modify meaning of the verbs in a rather literal manner (moving through, into, around something, etc.). Of course, the whole verb still may be used in a figurative sense, but then it likely won't mean any kind of movement whatsoever, unlike in the examples above.
Still I have to note that word formation (and it's what we are discussing now) isn't something you do on a daily basis; after all, all those verbs are already in the dictionary.


Quernon said:


> 3) Are there two kinds of *за* and two kinds of *об* as well?


Well, you can just look into the list of meanings for the prefixes "за-" and "об-". It should be obvious then that such prefixes usually have only one spatial meaning (more or less vague sometimes, but still) and several very remotely related additional meanings (like the inchoative meaning of "за-" in "забе́гать", or the resultative meaning in "зае́здить").


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