The Old-Russian prefix Za-: Types of prefixal meanings and verbal Aspect in Tale of Igor’s campaign

Abstract

In this work, prefixed verbs with a prefix za- of the Tale of Igor's Campaign are classified within the dictionary articles to reveal their semantics and specific meaning. In order to determine its semantic and specific properties, four types of meaning are used as a reference point (spatial only, spatial-resulting, temporal-resulting, only resulting), which in the (old) Russian the prefix za- is shown in these complex verbs. They also determine not only the meaning in the verbal lemma za-, but also the formation of their verbal pairs functionally (limit, trivial, perfective, proleptic) and morphologically (produced by the substitution of the base, suffix or de-suffixation). Spatial-only verbs with za- (verbs without an aspectual partner, imperfective, extremely strange in Old Russian, for example, залежати ("to be under siege") do not appear in the Tale; the spatial and resultant verbs, which are prefixed with an indication of the perfective aspect together with the spatial representation (classified within the three semas BEHIND, FAR, COVER and their variants) and those that form pairs of limit type appear in the Story up to 10 times: заворочаетъ, зайде, загородите, закладаше, заступаше путь, заступи путь, заступивъ знаменiе, залетело, занесе, затче. The temporal and resultant verbs, that is, the punctual verbs of perfective aspect that indicate the beginning of an action, such as заговорити ('to start talking'), or the excess at the end of this action, such as замучити ('to torture too much') have not been found in the Story, which confirms its archaicity. The exclusively resultative verbs, whose prefix is considered an indicator of perfective aspect, appear in the Story 6 times: затвориша, затвори, зареза, закалена form their pairs by means of a suffix or desprefixation, and забывь and запала the forms only with a suffix.