3.7 Supplement: Чего спрашивать?

The preceding modules have repeatedly invoked the notion that perfective infinitives occur when the speaker has a goal for the action. Consider a slightly edited version of the title of module 3.2: Я хочу купить это кольцо, но не хочу переплачивать ‘I want to buy this ring, but I don’t want to overpay’. The first infinitive is perfective because the desire on the part of the speaker to carry out the purchase reflects a goal (e.g., to have a nice ring to wear on certain occasions or to impress people, etc.). In contrast, the second infinitive is imperfective because the speaker has no goal of his/her own for the action of overpaying.

This same mechanism applies to aspectual usage in “bare” infinitives, i.e., infinitives that are not complements of predicators such as хотеть, надо, etc. A quick example of a bare infinitive is  the command Молчать! ‘Be quiet!’. This infinitive is imperfective because it refers to an extended action of being quiet with no endpoint—a canonical use of the imperfective.

Much more important for students are infinitives that occur in yes/no ‘Should I…’ questions concerning single completable actions, in which the assumption of a goal for an action triggers the perfective whereas the lack of a goal triggers the imperfective. Consider the following dialogue:

Лариса обращается к мужу:

‘Larisa is talking to her husband:

– Саш, сходи, пожалуйста, в магазин за хлебом.

“Sasha, please go to the store to get bread.”

– Молока тоже взять?

“Should I get some milk too?”

– Да, возьми заодно, две бутылки.

“Yes, get it while you’re there, two bottles.”

The reason for the perfective here lies beyond completion—with the modality the speaker expresses a presupposition that the listener has a goal for carrying out the action (here: buying milk), in which case the speaker is willing to carry it out.

The exceptions to this are questions that reveal a lack of certainty on the part of the speaker whether something should be done at all, i.e., when there is a lack of certainty whether the listener has a purpose for the action. In such cases, which often occur with the tag …или нет? ‘or not?’, the imperfective is required, as in the following:

Despite the impersonal construction, the lack of certainty in this question, i.e., the speaker’s lack of the assumption that the answer is yes, makes it tantamount to asking Do you want me to buy brandy or not?

Going back to our previous dialogue, the imperfective is possible, as in the following:

However, this question signals the same lack of certainty. That is to say, in the dialogue up above with the perfective (Молокa тоже взять? ‘Should I get some milk too?’), the husband’s presupposition is that his wife probably does want him to get it (say, in the case that he knows there’s not much milk in the refrigerator, and moreover knows or infers that his wife is also aware of his fact). In contrast, in the last dialogue with the imperfective (Лена, молоко брать? ‘Lena, should I get milk?) the husband is making no assumption about the need to get milk and simply asks for guidance.

The takeaway here is that if you need to ask a question that could be formulated as Should I do X or not?/Do you want me to do X or not? you should use the following construction: [imperfective infinitive] или нет? Note again that the imperfective is enough to signal this lack of certainty and request for guidance, and  adding the tag …или нет? is never wrong, but not required.

Also useful for students are question-word questions that presuppose a complete lack of a goal on the part of the speaker. These occur when the speaker either completely fails to see any purpose for an action, or is clueless about what to do. We take these in order.

A good example of an exchange where the speaker fails to see the point of doing something is the following, from Vasily Grossman’s For a Just Cause:

Here Vavilov had no goal for asking the man who he was because he considered the relevant answer to his question to be blatantly obvious.

The question word чего ‘what/what for’ signals the lack of a purpose on the part of the speaker. Another question word with the same effect is зачем: it asks what the purpose for something is, whereby the speaker ordinarily signals that he/she has no purpose for the action, and the infinitive is imperfective, as in the following:

Here the speaker is asking why he/she would call and ask all sorts of questions if he/she had no goal for doing so. Another example:

Here the speaker sees no point, i.e., no goal for trying to bring clarity to what happened, and no goal for stirring up the past.

Another question word that merits a few comments is куда. In questions with куда, if the speaker presupposes that there is somewhere to go and that someone will tell him/her, the perfective is very common, as in the following dialogue.

If the speaker does not presuppose that the listener has a good answer about where to go, then the imperfective is preferred, as in the following dialogue.

Likewise, if the speaker presupposes that no possible alternative is acceptable, the imperfective is also preferred, as in the following.

This logic lies behind the rhetorical question Kуда деваться? ‘Where to get to?’, which has a meaning of ‘There’s nothing to be done’. Likewise, the lack of any goal for any particular choice of action produces the imperfective in the frequent question Что делать? ‘What should I/we do?’.

There are many subtle variations on the patterns shown above, and often the difference is very slight. Nevertheless, there is a fairly simple takeaway for students: With ‘Should I…’ questions and question word questions (e.g., зачем, куда or что), if you are fairly sure your interlocutor will give a positive answer to your question, use the perfective. If, however, you feel completely clueless about what to do and/or doubt whether you will get a useful answer to your question, the imperfective is the better choice.