Questions & Answers about Поставь стул к столу, пожалуйста.
Why is the verb поставь and not постави or поставьте?
Поставь is the imperative (command/request form) for ты (informal you) from the verb поставить.
- поставь = (you, informal) put / place (it)
- поставьте = (you, formal or plural) put / place (it)
There is no standard imperative постави for this verb in modern Russian.
What verb is this, and what does it mean literally?
The infinitive is поставить (perfective). Literally it’s “to set/put (something) in a standing position,” but in everyday usage it commonly just means to put/place something somewhere (chairs, cups, bags, etc.).
Why is поставить/поставь perfective here? Could it be imperfective?
Requests like this often use the perfective imperative to ask for a single completed action: move it and be done.
You can also hear imperfective in other contexts, but it changes the feel:
- Поставь стул к столу (perfective) = put the chair by the table (one concrete result)
- Ставь стул к столу (imperfective) can sound like: go ahead and (habitually/ongoingly) put it there, or instructions while the action is in progress. The perfective is the natural default for a one-time request.