🗣️ 16. Derivation: prefixes

Ukrainian forms new words with prefixes (Ukrainian префікси, in the older grammars приростки), suffixes (17. Derivation: suffixes), compounding and a few minor processes (18. Compounding, conversion and minor processes). Prefixes matter most for the verb. A verbal prefix does two jobs at once: it changes or narrows the meaning of the verb, and it nearly always makes an imperfective verb perfective. That is how most aspect pairs of the language are made, and it is why this chapter is mainly about verbs. §1 sets out what a prefix is and how it differs from a preposition. §§2–4 cover the verbal prefixes: the perfectivising function, the lexical meanings of each prefix, and the modes of action (Aktionsarten, Ukrainian способи дії) that prefixes build with and without the reflexive -ся. §5 covers stacked prefixes. §6 covers the prefixes of nouns and adjectives, native and borrowed. §7 gives the spelling rules of the 2019 orthography for prefixes. §8 gives the counts made for this chapter, and §9 says how Mova handles prefixes today.

Transliteration follows the scholarly system (г h, ґ g, и y, і i, ї ji, й j, є je, ж ž, х x, ц c, ч č, ш š, щ šč, ю ju, я ja, ь ʹ), given on first use. The aspect system itself is described in 13. Verbs. This chapter covers how the forms are built.

1. What a prefix is

A prefix is a bound morpheme placed before the root. Most Ukrainian prefixes are also prepositions: в(у), до, з (із, зі), за, на, над, о (об, обі), од (від), по, під, перед, при, про, роз- (only a prefix), ви- (only a prefix), пере- (only a prefix). Simovych's grammar of 1919, the fullest of the public-domain grammars in the library, puts it this way. Suffixes "mean nothing on their own", while prefixes are for the most part independent words, prepositions, and their meaning in the compound follows the meaning of the preposition: в ліс 'into the forest' : ввійти 'go in'; на горі 'on the hill' : насісти 'sit on top'; від хати 'away from the house' : відійти 'go away' (Simovych 1919 §§109–110). He lists the prefixes that are not prepositions: ви-, най-, пере-, пра-, пре-, роз- (§110). Smal-Stockyj's German grammar of 1913 makes the same point: most prefixes "serve to define or change the meaning of verbs" (Smal-Stockyj 1913 §14).

Three properties of a prefix follow from this:

• It is not stressed by rule. Ukrainian stress is free (3. Syllable, stress and intonation). Most prefixed verbs keep the stress of the base (писа́ти → переписа́ти), but the prefix ви- is stressed in perfective verbs: ви́писати 'write out' against imperfective випи́сувати. Nouns made from prefixed verbs often stress the prefix: ви́хід 'exit', за́хід 'west; measure', пе́рехід 'crossing', ро́зчин 'solution'.
• It may sit before an inflected preposition-like word and become part of a new word. Adverbs such as вгорі́ 'above' and назавжди́ 'for ever', written together in the 2019 orthography (6. Spelling rules and the 2019 orthography; Pravopys 2019 §41), began as preposition + noun or adverb. The line between the prefix and the preposition in such adverbs is a spelling convention.
• It changes the government of the verb. Simovych notes that на-, об-, пере-, про- make an intransitive verb transitive: іти́ 'go' (intransitive) → найти́ (стежку) 'find (the path)', обійти́ (худобу) 'go round (the cattle)', перейти́ (річку) 'cross (the river)' (Simovych 1919 §228.4). The case a prefixed verb governs is often the case its preposition governs: відійти від + genitive, надбудувати над + instrumental, дійти до + genitive.

2. Prefixes and aspect

2.1 The perfectivising function

An imperfective verb without a prefix becomes perfective when a prefix is added. Simovych's examples are нести́ → занести́, понести́; сохнути → ви́сохнути; розуміти → зрозуміти; чинити → вчинити; читати → прочитати; малювати → намалювати; порядкувати → упорядкувати. He states the rule: "some prefixes, without changing the meaning of the verb, make an imperfective verb perfective" (Simovych 1919 §228.2). Smal-Stockyj makes the same contrast with летіла 'was flying' and полетіла 'flew off, took flight' (Smal-Stockyj 1913 §14).

Where the prefix adds no meaning of its own beyond completion, the result is a pure aspect pair (чиста видова пара), and the prefix is called "empty" or purely perfectivising. Which prefix makes the pure perfective of a given verb is a lexical fact. It has to be learned word by word:

The same base can have several perfectives with different prefixes, each with its own meaning: писа́ти 'write' → написа́ти (pure perfective), переписа́ти 'rewrite, copy', ви́писати 'write out; subscribe to', підписа́ти 'sign', записа́ти 'note down, record', описа́ти 'describe', дописа́ти 'finish writing', розписа́ти 'paint over; schedule; register (a marriage)', прописа́ти 'prescribe; register (a residence)'. Only написати is the plain perfective of писати. The others are new verbs with a meaning of their own.

2.2 Secondary imperfectives

A prefixed perfective with a new lexical meaning needs an imperfective of its own. It gets one by a suffix, not by removing the prefix. This secondary imperfective (вторинна імперфективація) is the regular way the language closes the aspect pair:

The secondary suffixes are -ува-/-юва- (the most productive), -ва- after vowels, and -а-/-я-. The last often brings a vowel change in the root. The 2019 orthography describes the alternation о — а in such roots: verbs with о name a single or completed action, verbs with а a repeated one, as in допомогти́ — допомага́ти, гони́ти — ганя́ти, коти́ти — кача́ти (Pravopys 2019 §11). The consonant alternations before -я- (б → бл, п → пл, в → вл, м → мл; с → ш, з → ж, т → ч, ст → щ) are those of the verb paradigm (4. Connected speech; Pravopys 2019 §§16–18). The vowel о or е of the base can alternate with и or zero: зібра́ти — збира́ти (root бр-/бир-), уме́рти — умира́ти, загребти́ — загріба́ти (Simovych 1919 §228.3, who lists гребти — загребти — загрібати, мерти — умерти — умірати, зичити — позичити — позичати, гадати — вгадати — вгадувати).

The spelling of -ува- versus -ова- in the derived nouns and participles depends on stress: -ува- when the first vowel of the suffix is unstressed (викру́чувати — викру́чування, викру́чуваний), -ова- when it is stressed (друкува́ти — друкува́ння but друко́ваний; малюва́ти but мальо́ваний). The suffix -овува- always carries the stress on its first vowel: завойо́вувати, перемальо́вувати (Pravopys 2019 §34).

2.3 Prefixed imperfectives

A prefix does not perfectivise every verb. Prefixed verbs of motion built on the indeterminate (multidirectional) stem stay imperfective: ходи́ти 'walk (about)' → захо́дити 'call in, drop by', прихо́дити 'come', вихо́дити 'go out', all imperfective. Their perfectives are built on the determinate stem: зайти́, прийти́, ви́йти. The pair прихо́дити — прийти́ thus looks like a pair of two prefixed verbs with different stems. The same holds for носи́ти/нести́ (прино́сити — принести́), вози́ти/везти́, літа́ти/леті́ти, бі́гати/бі́гти, ї́здити/ї́хати.

2.4 Pairs without a prefix

Not every aspect pair uses a prefix. Ukrainian also has:

• suffixal pairs with -ну- for single or sudden acts (semelfactives): стриба́ти — стрибну́ти 'jump', крича́ти — кри́кнути 'shout', ки́дати — ки́нути 'throw', гля́нути 'glance' (Simovych 1919 §227.2; Smal-Stockyj 1913 §13). The -ну- of со́хнути 'dry', гло́хнути 'go deaf' is a different, inchoative -ну- and gives imperfectives;
• suffixal pairs with -а-/-я-, -ва-, -ува- without a prefix: да́ти — дава́ти, ста́ти — става́ти, ки́нути — кида́ти;
• suppletive pairs: бра́ти — взя́ти 'take', говори́ти — сказа́ти 'say', кла́сти — покла́сти 'put', лови́ти — спійма́ти 'catch';
• stress pairs, rare: розрі́зати (pf.) — розріза́ти (impf.) 'cut up';
• biaspectual verbs, mostly loans in -ува- and -изува-: атакува́ти 'attack', арештува́ти 'arrest', акредитува́ти, індексува́ти, реформува́ти, and native веліти 'order'. Simovych already remarks that арештува́ти is imperfective in Ukrainian where Russian makes a pair (арестовать — арестовывать) (Simovych 1919 §228, note). In current usage loans of this type also take за-, з-, про- to make an unambiguous perfective: заарештува́ти, проіндексува́ти, зреформува́ти.

3. The meanings of the verbal prefixes

The table gives each prefix's spatial meaning, its abstract and aspectual meanings, and its modes of action, with examples. Smal-Stockyj 1913 §14 and Simovych 1919 §§107–111, 228 give the same inventory with their own examples. Most of the glosses below are constructed for this manual.

Notes on particular prefixes:

• з- and its variants are the most frequent "empty" prefix in running text after по- and за- (§8). It has the widest set of spelling variants (§7.1).
• по- carries the most meanings. It is the pure perfective of many verbs (поба́чити, подя́кувати, пофарбува́ти). It gives the delimitative 'for a while' (поспа́ти, погуля́ти, поду́мати), the start of a motion (піти́, поїхати, побі́гти), and with a secondary imperfective and a plural object the distributive 'one after another, all of them' (повідчиня́ти ві́кна 'open all the windows', поскида́ти 'throw off (one by one)').
• за- is the usual ingressive prefix with verbs of sound, movement and emotion: заплака́ти 'start crying', заболі́ти 'begin to hurt', загомоні́ти 'start talking (of many)'. With -ся it gives 'get carried away': зачита́тися 'become absorbed in reading', задивитися 'gaze, be lost in looking'.
• ви- is the only prefix that takes the stress in perfective verbs: ви́бігти, ви́йти, ви́мити, ви́писати. The imperfective partners stress the root or the suffix: вибіга́ти, вихо́дити, вимива́ти, випи́сувати.
• від- has the old variant од-. Puriaieva notes that literary prose uses both side by side (відпочи́ти and одпочи́ти, відки́нути and одки́нути), while scholarly writing uses only від- (Puriaieva 2023). In the 2024 news sample (§8) од- has gone: відпочи- 2 496 forms against одпочи- 0, відкин- 477 against 0, відповід- 14 461 against 1.
• о-/об-/обі-: the variant is chosen by the following sound, much as with з-/зі-: обі- before two consonants (обійти́ from об- + ійти, обіпе́ртися, обірва́ти), об- before a vowel or a single consonant (обби́ти, обмалюва́ти), о- in many old verbs (оточи́ти, озбро́їти, озвучити).
• у-/в- alternate in writing by the rule of euphony: у- between consonants and at the start of a sentence before a consonant, в- after a vowel (вона ввійшла, він увійшов; Pravopys 2019 §23; 4. Connected speech). Both spellings are the same prefix. Some words keep only one, e.g. вплив 'influence', увага 'attention', вступ 'introduction', урок 'lesson'.

4. Modes of action

A mode of action (спосіб дії, German Aktionsart) is a regular change in how an action unfolds in time or in quantity. It is expressed by a prefix, often together with the postfix -ся and sometimes with a suffix. The modes are lexical derivations, not grammatical forms: each one makes a new verb with its own entry in the dictionary, and most of these verbs have no aspect partner (they are perfectiva tantum). The main types:

The saturative and excessive verbs in -ся are especially frequent in speech and in folk style: нагуля́тися 'have a good time (to the full)', наговори́тися 'talk one's fill', нажи́тися 'live long enough; get rich'. The attenuative and delimitative meanings are also expressed by suffixes with no prefix in colloquial speech (поспа́ти versus поспа́тоньки in nursery language, 17. Derivation: suffixes §3.5).

5. Stacked prefixes

A verb can carry two, three or even four prefixes. Simovych calls them "compound prefixes" and gives a long list: попої́сти 'eat well', попоспа́ти 'sleep long', понадку́шувати 'take a bite out of many things', понавига́дувати 'invent (many stories)', поперевертати 'turn everything over', порозпози́чати 'lend out everything', понаспро́шувати 'invite many people' (Simovych 1919 §111). His literary quotations (Marko Vovčok попобито, Kvitka повідпадають, Kuliš повкладались) show the type in the nineteenth-century literary language. The outer prefix is nearly always по-, sometimes на- or пере-. It adds the distributive meaning 'all, one after another, many' or, more rarely, the attenuative 'a little' (попостояв 'stood a while').

Simovych also claims that "other languages do not know compound prefixes, Russian above all" (§111). That is too strong. Russian has the same distributive type (понаделать, понаехать), and so do other Slavic languages. In Ukrainian the type is more frequent and more productive in speech, and it is a recognised feature of the folk style. The rule for the order: the inner prefix carries the lexical meaning (від-чиняти 'open'), the secondary suffix makes the verb imperfective (відчиня́ти), and the outer prefix по- makes the distributive perfective (повідчиня́ти). That is why the base of a stacked verb is nearly always a secondary imperfective: по-ви-ганя́ти, по-за-чиня́ти, по-пере-бива́ти.

The counts in §8 find 225 VESUM verb lemmas in попо- that are по- plus an existing verb in по-, and in each of them the outer по- makes a perfective (попоїсти, попоходити, попопрацювати). Lemmas such as понаїжджати and повиганяти belong to the larger class по- + prefixed verb.

6. Prefixes of nouns and adjectives

6.1 Prefixes from verbs

Most nouns and adjectives with a prefix are made from prefixed verbs (ви́хід from ви́йти, пере́клад 'translation' from перекла́сти, відкриття́ 'discovery' from відкри́ти, прина́дний 'attractive' from принади́ти). Their prefix belongs to the verb, and their derivation is suffixal or zero-suffixal (17. Derivation: suffixes §5). The prefixes in this section attach directly to nouns and adjectives.

Some nominal compounds are made with a preposition, a noun stem and a suffix at the same time (prefixal-suffixal derivation): при́гірок 'foothill' (при горі́), при́ярок 'side of a ravine', прибере́жний 'coastal' (при бе́резі), прикордо́нний 'border' (при кордо́ні), підвіко́ння 'window sill' (під вікно́м), надвечі́р'я 'eve' (над ве́чором), замі́ський 'out-of-town' (за мі́стом), міжнаро́дний 'international' (між наро́дами), безро́біття 'unemployment' (без робо́ти). The 2019 orthography names this type under при- (Pravopys 2019 §31.3).

6.2 Native nominal and adjectival prefixes

The prefix не- has a special status. It is the most frequent nominal and adjectival prefix, and it has two meanings: plain negation (несолодкий 'not sweet', небагато 'not much') and the opposite or the bad kind (недруг 'enemy', негода 'bad weather', неук 'ignoramus'). Melymuka et al. (2017) modelled не- on nouns and adjectives as two separate patterns in a distributional study of 70 base/derived pairs each, drawn from a 131-million-token corpus. For the adjectives the derived word stays close to its base (солодкий → несолодкий), and the semantic shift is small. For nouns the shift is larger (друг → недруг 'friend → enemy'). The authors treat the two as one polysemous prefix, unlike the homonymous suffix -к- (feminine and diminutive). When the nominal and adjectival не- pairs were learned together, the prediction for nouns improved and the one for adjectives stayed the same, which fits that view (Melymuka et al. 2017, §§3–4.1). The privative без- was the hardest pattern to predict. The authors explain this by the two-step derivation: шум 'noise' → шумний 'noisy', and безшумний 'noiseless' is built on the noun шум through the adjective pattern, not on the adjective шумний.

6.3 Borrowed prefixes and prefix-like elements

Learned and international vocabulary brings prefixes from Greek, Latin and, more recently, English. The 2019 orthography treats them as elements written together with the next word. It sorts them into three lists (Pravopys 2019 §35.4):

• regularly used first elements ending in a vowel or a consonant: авіа-, авто- ('self', 'automatic'), агро-, аеро-, аква-, арт-, аудіо-, біо-, веб-, гео-, гідро-, еко-, етно-, євро-, зоо-, кібер-, мета-, моно-, мото-, нео-, пан-, пара-, поп-, прес-, псевдо- and others: автомагістра́ль, біоло́гія, вебсайт, кібератака, медіаграмотність, псевдонау́ка;
• first elements that express degree or quantity: архі-, бліц-, гіпер-, екстра-, макро-, максі-, міді-, мікро-, міні-, мульти-, нано-, полі-, преміум-, супер-, топ-, ультра-, флеш-: гіперма́ркет, мініблок, мультимільйоне́р, супермо́дний, топме́неджер, ультразву́к. The final і of максі-, міді- does not change to и before a consonant (максісу́кня, мідіспідни́ця), and топ- does not combine with numerals;
• the prefixes of rank and opposition анти-, віце-, екс-, контр-, лейб-, обер-, штабс-, унтер-: антиві́рус, віцепрем'є́р, ексміні́стр, експрезиде́нт, контруда́р, оберлейтена́нт, унтерофіце́р. With a proper name they take a hyphen: «Анти-Дюринг», екс-Югосла́вія. The final и of анти- stays и before a vowel: антиелектро́н, антиінфляці́йний, антиурядо́вий.

The 2019 text also sets архі- for ordinary nouns and adjectives (архіважли́вий 'extremely important', архімільйоне́р). For church ranks it admits both архи- and архі- (архимандри́т and архімандри́т, архиєре́й and архієре́й). It sets анти- and квазі- outside the usual rules for и/і in loans: антиалкого́льний, антиєвропе́йський; квазіри́нок, квазічасти́нка (Pravopys 2019 §31.4–5). Puriaieva questions the variant архі-/архи- for church titles: she traces архі- in them to the period when Ukrainian dioceses were part of the Russian Church and argues that the variant should not be codified, noting that Holoskevych's spelling dictionary of 1929 has only архи- (Puriaieva 2023, §1). She also asks for a rule for ди-/ді- 'two' in chemistry: ди- before a consonant (диполя́рний), ді- before a vowel (діокси́д).

Usage and the 2019 rule (measured). The 2019 text writes віце-, екс-, топ- together with the next word. The editions of 1993 and earlier wrote віце- and екс- with a hyphen. In the Leipzig Ukrainian news corpus of 2024 (§8), the new spelling leads but the old one has not gone:

(Counts of all word forms beginning with the string, news 2024, 13.7 million word tokens; counted 2026-11-06.) For віце- and топ-, about one writer in three, or one in two, still uses the hyphen seven years after the reform. With кібер- and екс-чемпіон the together spelling is already the near-universal one. The reform codified the together spelling for these elements, and usage is still moving toward it.

7. Spelling of prefixes (Pravopys 2019)

7.1 з-, с-, зі-, із-, зо-

The prefix з- has five written shapes. The 2019 rules (Pravopys 2019 §31.1):

• с- before the voiceless consonants к, п, т, ф, х: сказа́ти, спалахну́ти, стовкти́, сфотографува́ти, схили́ти. Schoolchildren learn the five letters through the mnemonic кафе «птах» ('the café "Bird"'), which contains exactly к, ф, п, т, х. Before the other voiceless consonants с, ш, ц, ч the prefix stays з-: зсади́ти, зші́ток, зці́пити, зчепи́ти, pronounced with assimilation (4. Connected speech);
• з- before all other letters (rarely із-): зба́вити, звести́, зжи́тися, ззирну́тися; ізжо́вкнути, ізно́ву, ізсере́дини;
• з- (с-) mainly before a root that begins with a vowel or with a consonant + vowel: зеконо́мити, зігнорува́ти, зорієнтува́тися, зумо́вити; здрібни́ти, скла́сти, скріпи́ти;
• зі- mostly where the root begins with two consonants: зібга́ти, зігну́ти, зігра́ти, зідра́ти, зізна́тися, зіпсува́ти, зіста́вити, зі́ткнення, зіщу́литися; also before a labial + й (зів'я́лий, зім'я́ти, зіп'я́стися, beside сп'ясти́ся);
• зі- or зо- in parallel in a few verbs: зігріва́ти and зогріва́ти, зімліва́ти and зомліва́ти, зітлі́ти and зотлі́ти.

Puriaieva notes that the rule as printed illustrates з- (с-) before a vowel and before two consonants of which one is a sonorant (здрібни́ти, скла́сти). It gives no example of з- before a single consonant + vowel (зга́слий, змаза́ти, з'є́днувати, з'їзд), and she proposes adding this position to the rule (Puriaieva 2023, §1).

The Leipzig news count shows the с- rule kept without exception in the words tested: сфотографува- 173 forms against зфотографува- 0, скопію- 31 against зкопію- 0.

The preposition з/із/зі/зо has its own, related rules of euphony (Pravopys 2019 §25), described in 4. Connected speech §§ on euphony.

7.2 Prefixes ending in a voiced consonant: без-, роз-, від-, над-, під-, об-, між-, перед-, понад-, через-

The final voiced consonant of these prefixes is written unchanged before a voiceless consonant, whatever the pronunciation: безкори́сливий, безкраї́й, відкриття́, ві́дстань, міжконтинента́льний, надпоту́жний, обпали́ти, обтруси́ти, передплати́ти, передча́сний, підтри́мка, понадпла́новий, розтягну́ти, ро́зчин, розхита́ти, черезплі́чник (Pravopys 2019 §31.2). The spelling is morphological: it shows the prefix, not the pronunciation. How far the final consonant is devoiced or assimilated in speech is a matter for the orthoepic norm (4. Connected speech).

Where the prefix ends in the consonant the root begins with, both letters are written: ввічли́вий, відда́ти, ві́дділ, беззву́чний, беззу́бий, обби́ти, роззбро́їти, роззя́ва, зза́ду (Pravopys 2019 §29.1). Before я, ю, є, ї after a prefix ending in a consonant, an apostrophe separates the two: з'їзд, від'ї́зд, під'ї́зд, роз'ясни́ти, об'є́днання, без'я́дерний, also в'їзд (5. The writing system). Before a root that begins with two consonants, the prefixes від-, над-, об-, під-, роз- (and з-, §7.1) often take an inserted і: відібра́ти, наді́рвати, обіпе́ртися, піді́брати, розібра́ти, and with the verb іти́ 'go' відійти́, підійти́, розійти́ся, обійти́. Simovych describes this "inserted hard і" and its spread by analogy to words where the root does not begin with two consonants (Simovych 1919 §57).

For line breaks, a one-syllable prefix before a consonant is not split: над-мі́рний, роз-по-ві́сти, not на-дмірний; prefixes of more than one syllable may be split: пе-ре-працюва́ти. Before a vowel root the break is free: ро-зора́ти, роз-ора́ти. The pair дж, дз is split when д belongs to the prefix: над-звича́йний, під-жив-ля́ти (Pravopys 2019 §§63–64).

7.3 пре-, при-, прі-

These three are kept apart by meaning (Pravopys 2019 §31.3):

• пре- in qualitative adjectives and adverbs for the highest degree: прега́рний, презавзя́тий, прекра́сний, прему́дрий, препога́но, пречудо́во; also прези́рливий, прези́рство 'contempt' and Church Slavonic words преосвяще́нний, преподо́бний, престо́л. Puriaieva notes that презирство is itself a Church Slavonic word, so listing it apart from the Church Slavonic group makes little sense (Puriaieva 2023);
• при- in verbs of approach, attachment, partial action or result and their derivatives (прибі́гти, прибо́ркати, прибудува́ти, прива́бити, прикрути́ти, пришви́дшити), in prefixal-suffixal nouns and adjectives with the preposition при (при́гірок, прибере́жний), and in adjectives of incomplete quality (приста́ркуватий);
• прі- only in прі́звище 'surname', прі́звисько 'nickname', прі́рва 'abyss'.

7.4 пів

Пів 'half' before a noun in the genitive singular is written as a separate word: пів а́ркуша, пів годи́ни, пів лі́тра, пів я́блука, пів Украї́ни, пів Ки́єва. It is written together when it forms a single concept with a noun in the nominative and does not mean 'half': півку́ля 'hemisphere', пі́вдень 'south', півкóло 'semicircle', піво́стрів 'peninsula', півлі́тра (colloquial) 'a half-litre bottle of vodka' (Pravopys 2019 §36.1.6, note). Before 2019 the forms with пів were written together (півгодини, піврóку) or with a hyphen before a vowel, я, ю, є, ї and proper names (пів-Європи). In the 2024 news sample the separate spelling prevails but has not replaced the old one:

(Leipzig news 2024; case-insensitive whole-word counts; 2026-11-06.)

7.5 напів-, полу-

Напів- and the old полу- are written together: напівавтома́т, напівпра́вда, напівпітьма́; полу́мисок 'dish', полу́драбок 'side rail of a cart' (Pravopys 2019 §36.1.6).

8. Counts

The counts were made for this chapter on 2026-11-06.

VESUM (dict_corp_vis.txt.bz2, release 6.8.6, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only). The file has 442 458 lemma lines. Verb lemma lines not marked bad (the tag for non-standard and surzhyk forms): 48 598. They give 46 262 distinct verb lemmas: 24 632 perfective only, 19 383 imperfective only and 2 247 with both a perfective and an imperfective entry (biaspectual, mostly loans in -ува-: акредитувати, індексувати, субсидувати).

To see how many verbs are a prefix plus an existing verb, each lemma was matched against a list of 31 prefix strings (longest first: недо-, пере-, понад-, попо-, роз-, без-, від-, обі-, під-, над-, пре-, при-, про-, перед-, ви-, за-, по-, на-, до-, зі-, із-, об-, од-, су-, вз-, воз-, з-, с-, у-, в-, о-). A lemma counts as prefixed when the remainder is itself a VESUM verb lemma (полетіти = по- + летіти). This is a string test, not a morphological analysis. A hand check of 40 random matches found 2 false ones (зикати is not з- + икати, відвадити is not від- + вадити), so the figures are close but not exact.

Four perfectives in five are a prefix on another verb. The imperfective prefixed verbs are mainly motion verbs on the indeterminate stem (заходити, втікати) and secondary imperfectives whose unprefixed base also exists (відкуплятися, розставатися).

Prefixed verb lemmas by prefix (all aspects; in brackets, those where a perfective is built on an imperfective base, i.e. the aspect-changing pattern):

Grouping the variants: з-/с-/зі-/із- together 1 828 lemmas, в-/у- 1 511, від-/од- 1 226. По- is the most productive prefix of the lexicon by a wide margin. Пере- has the lowest share of aspect-changing derivatives among the large prefixes (755 of 1 383): it often attaches to a verb that is already perfective (перез'єднати, перевлаштувати) in its meaning 're-, again'. Недо- attaches to perfectives (недооцінити from оцінити), so half of its lemmas fall outside the "perfective from imperfective" column.

UD Ukrainian 2.18 (all files of IU, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only; and ParlaMint, CC BY-SA 4.0). Verbal tokens (VERB and AUX) and their aspect:

Of the 9 226 perfective VERB tokens of both treebanks, 7 171 (77.7%) have a lemma that the VESUM test above marks as prefix + existing verb. The prefixes by token frequency: по- 942, за- 908, з- 730, ви- 697, с- 585, при- 522, на- 380, в- 349, від- 317, про- 315, пере- 274, під- 223, роз- 222, до- 218, о- 193. The most frequent perfectives without a matched prefix are the old pairs and suppletive or opaque verbs: дати 161, стати 152, піти 117, почати 90, взяти 77, забезпечити 65, включити 43. Some of these do contain a prefix historically (піти = по- + іти, почати = по- + -чати), but the remainder no longer exists as a verb.

Leipzig news 2024 (ukr_news_2024_1M, CC BY, Goldhahn, Eckart & Quasthoff 2012; 1 million sentences; 13 658 159 Cyrillic word tokens after splitting on non-letters, apostrophes and hyphens kept inside words). It was used for the spelling counts of §6.3 and §7. Horodenska describes how, since the 1990s, зне- has spread at the expense of обез- in verbs meaning 'deprive of a quality' (знешко́дити 'neutralise' for older обезшко́дити) (Horodenska 2025). The news counts confirm that the change is complete: знешкод- 312 forms against обезшкод- 0, знеструм- 555 against 0, знебол- 58 against обезбол- 1, знецін- 96 against обезцін- 2.

9. How Mova handles prefixes

Mova has no derivational morphology for Ukrainian. Nothing in Mova segments a Ukrainian word into prefix, root and suffix, links написати to писати or переписувати to переписати, or knows which prefix makes the pure perfective of a verb. The counts in §8 were made with one-off text tools for this chapter and are not part of Mova.

• Aspect comes from the dictionary, not from the prefix. The kg crate reads VESUM (kg/src/morph.rs) and stores each word form's grammar in a 4-byte code (kg/src/gram.rs). The code has a 2-bit aspect field filled from the VESUM tags imperf and perf (Gram::from_vesum). A prefixed verb is therefore recognised as perfective only because VESUM lists it, with its paradigm, as a separate perfective lemma. A new prefixed verb absent from VESUM (зреформувати, заскрінити) gets no analysis, and the sentence parser kg/src/uk.rs rejects the sentence rather than guess. VESUM is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, so this path is for research and tests, not for a release.
• Pairs are not linked. A kg lemma key is lemma|part_of_speech (with #xpN for homonymous paradigms, lemma_key in kg/src/morph.rs). Написати and писати are two unrelated keys, and the knowledge graph cannot tell that a fact with написав and one with писав concern the same action.
• The English tree parser loses aspect. When Mova's English parser reads the UD Ukrainian treebanks, en xpos-fill maps each verb to a Penn tag by tense and verb form only (xpos_of in en/src/main.rs): a perfective future напишу and an imperfective present пишу both become VBP. The UD Aspect feature stays in the FEATS column, which the parser does not use. With this mapping the parser reaches LAS 73.43 with its own tags (78.17 with gold tags) on UD Ukrainian IU and 79.28 (81.34) on ParlaMint, train → dev, 2026-11-06 (two runs identical).
• Spelling variants are separate words. Віцепрем'єр and віце-прем'єр, пів року and півроку, від- and од- are not normalised. The kg tokenizer keeps the hyphen inside a word (kg/src/uk.rs, tokenize), so віце-прем'єр is one token. Whether it is found in VESUM depends on which spelling VESUM lists. VESUM marks the 2019 spellings with the tag up19 and older ones with up92, but Mova reads neither tag.

What would be needed. A prefix segmenter for verbs: the prefix list of §3 with its variants (§7), a check that the remainder is an existing verb, and a table of pure-perfective prefixes per base verb. It could be learned from VESUM aspect pairs and checked against a hand-made gold list, with the precision measured as in §8. Above that: secondary-imperfective rules (-ува-, -ва-, -а-/-я- with the alternations of §2.2), so that a pair переписати — переписувати is linked, and a normaliser for the 2019 spelling variants (§§6.3, 7.4) that keeps both variants and records which one the text used. None of this is built.

Sources for this chapter

• Український правопис (2019), approved by Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 437 of 22 May 2019: §§11, 16–18, 23, 25, 29, 31, 34, 35.4, 36.1.6, 41, 63–64. Official document, not protected by copyright. Library books/u/uk/ukrainskyi-pravopys-2019 (slug uk-gram-pravopys-2019). archive.org/details/6032727-Ukr-Pravopys-2019
• Simovych, Vasyl'. 1919. Hramatyka ukrajins'koji movy dlja samonavčannja ta v dopomohu škil'nij nauci. Kyiv–Leipzig: Ukrajins'ka nakladnja. §§105–111 (prefixes, compound prefixes), §§227–228 (verbal suffixes and prefixes, aspect). Public domain. Library books/s/si/simovych-1919-hramatyka-ukrainskoi-movy-dlia (uk-gram-simovych-1919).
• Smal-Stockyj, Stephan. 1913. Ruthenische Grammatik. Berlin/Leipzig: Göschen. §§13–14 (verbal suffixes, prefixes). Public domain. Library books/s/st/stockyj-1913-ruthenische-grammatik (uk-gram-smal-stockyj-1913). archive.org/details/ruthenischegramm00smaluoft
• Melymuka, Mariia, Gabriella Lapesa, Max Kisselew & Sebastian Padó. 2017. Modeling derivational morphology in Ukrainian. IWCS 2017, short papers. CC BY 4.0 (melymuka-2017-modeling-derivational-morphology-ukrainian). aclanthology.org/W17-6928
• Puriaieva, N. V. 2023. Problemy pravopysu prefiksiv i sufiksiv v «Ukrajins'komu pravopysi» 2019 roku. Ukrajins'ka mova 2(86): 101–115. Library card CC BY 4.0; the article prints CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, so paraphrased only (puriaieva-2023-prefiksy-sufiksy). doi.org/10.15407/ukrmova2023.02.101
• Horodenska, K. H. 2025. Perevnormuvannja u slovotvorenni ukrajins'koji literaturnoji movy: pryčyny, osnovni vyjavy, naslidky. Ukrajins'ka mova 2(94): 71–84. Library card CC BY 4.0; the article prints CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, so paraphrased only (horodenska-2025-perevnormuvannia). doi.org/10.15407/ukrmova2025.02.071
• VESUM (dict_uk, Rysin & Starko), release 6.8.6, dict_corp_vis.txt.bz2. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: counts only. github.com/brown-uk/dict uk
• UD Ukrainian IU 2.18 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only) and UD Ukrainian ParlaMint 2.18 (CC BY-SA 4.0), ud-treebanks-v2.18; counts of 2026-11-06.
• Leipzig Corpora Collection, ukr_news_2024_1M (CC BY; Goldhahn, Eckart & Quasthoff 2012), leipzig-news-2024; counts of 2026-11-06.
• Mova: kg/src/morph.rs, kg/src/gram.rs, kg/src/uk.rs, en/src/main.rs (xpos_of); baseline runs of 2026-11-06.

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