4.4 Чувствуйте себя как дома!

In module 4.3 you learned to grant approval to an interlocutor’s intention with the imperfective imperative, to give them a green light to do what they have said or otherwise signaled that they want or need to do (and also learned the ways in which the perfective differs in such contexts). This module takes up imperfective usage that could be considered to be a variation on this mechanism.

Exercise A

All of the following dialogues contain a bolded imperfective imperative. Read the dialogues, and after each select the statements that are true about each.

Exercise B

What features are common to all the exchanges in exercise A?

Now let’s add perfective imperatives to see how things differ.

Exercise C

Read the dialogues, and after each select the statements that are true about each.

Exercise D

Choose the statements that most accurately describe the way the perfective and imperfective imperatives are used in exercise C.

In module 4.3 you learned that alongside imperfective imperatives used to grant approval there is usually a perfective alternative, which is not really a casual, reactive utterance but a matter-of-fact request by the speaker, whereby the speaker takes initiative/control in the conversation by turning a situation where he/she would simply grant approval into one where the speaker makes a request. The same alternative exists for an imperfective imperative expressing an invitation in some contexts, depending on who is talking to whom. Authority figures or anyone in a context where an invitation is made (e.g., for someone to come into someone’s office) in order to take care of some point of business may use the matter-of-fact perfective imperative to signal that they are “sticking to business.” Between coequals on friendly terms in casual social situations, the perfective alternative is very unlikely, as it is in situations where salespeople make “feigned” invitations to customers to come into their places of business.

Now that you have learned the tendencies for invitations, try exercise E. As in module 4.3, there are cases in which both aspects are possible; feedback is given for each alternative explaining the difference.

Exercise E

Choose the aspect that is more appropriate in the context.

Final Thoughts

This module has added another type of imperfective imperative referring to single completable actions. As with module 4.3 on granting approval, it is possible for the imperfective to be used in invitations for someone to do something as an ongoing activity (Ешь! ‘Feel free to keep eating’). That is to say, for invitations as well whether the action is completable or simply an extended activity is simply irrelevant. In any case, in invitations for the listener to do something once (to come in, take off their coat, etc.), the process of the action is not the focus; rather, what is crucial is that the speaker acts on his/her expectation of what the listener wants or expects in a routine social situation. In this respect, imperfective imperatives in invitations are very similar to the use of imperfective imperatives in granting approval to the listener’s intended actions. Indeed, there are cases when it become difficult to distinguish between these types, precisely because the speaker is acting on his/her knowledge or inferences about what the listener wants.

Remember that the semantic motivation for this usage is that the choice to carry out the action has already been made—this is what triggers the imperfective. When the speaker initiates a request for an action that the listener has not considered, the default aspect for the request is the perfective aspect.
It is debatable whether invitations uttered by salespeople, such as that in dialogue (15) of  exercise E are genuine invitations:

Центральный рынок, мясной отдел. Продавец обращается к покупательнице:
– Подходите, выбирайте колбаску. Берите вот варёную: докторская, молочная, останкинская…
‘The central market, meat department. The saleswoman speaks to a customer:
“Come over, pick out some sausage. Take one of these boiled sausages: ‘doctor’s’ sausage’, ‘dairy sausage’, ‘Ostankino sausage’…”’

One could argue that they are in fact not genuine invitations, but in any case they mimic invitations, and you should be ready to encounter such usage and not interpret it as referring to repeated events, etc. Note here too that in situations where chains of imperatives are given, usually only one or two actions are expressed as invitations, and in subsequent situations the speaker switches to a neutral instruction/suggestion/request mode, and the perfective will occur. We see this in a likely version of the preceding dialogue:

Центральный рынок, мясной отдел. Продавец обращается к покупательнице:
– Подходите, выбирайте колбаску. Возьмите вот варёную: докторская, молочная, останкинская…
‘The central market, meat department. The saleswoman speaks to a customer:
“Come over, pick out some sausage. Take one of these boiled sausages: ‘doctor’s’ sausage’, ‘dairy sausage’, ‘Ostankino sausage’…”’

Here the saleswoman is done with the feigned invitations and simply makes a suggestion with an imperative request, and we get the perfective возьмите.

The main takeaway for students is that when among coequals in casual social situations, invitations should be formulated with imperfective imperatives, as long as it can reasonably be inferred that the listener would want to do whatever action is at issue.

Lastly, invitations made in which the speaker is focused more on his/her hopes and speculation about what the listener might want (e.g., Заходите к нам как-нибудь! ‘Stop by our place sometime’) are also arguably a marginal case. That is, the speaker does not know the listener wants to come by, but acts as if that is the case. The sense of such utterances is ‘Feel free to do X’, and thus Заходите к нам как-нибудь! approximates the English ‘Feel free to stop by any time!’ You should assume that if you would use the ‘feel free to do X’ construction in English, you should use an imperfective imperative in Russian.

The next module continues with another type of imperfective imperative referring to single completable actions.