🗣️ 17. Derivation: suffixes

Suffixation is the main way Ukrainian makes nouns and adjectives, as prefixation is for verbs (16. Derivation: prefixes). A suffix (Ukrainian суфікс; наросток in Simovych and other grammars of the 1910s) stands between the root and the ending. Unlike a prefix it does not exist as a word on its own. It sets the word class of the new word, often its gender and declension, and much of its meaning. Ukrainian has a large inventory of suffixes, many of them stacked (пис-ь-мен-ник 'writer', поп-ов-ич-ів-на 'priest's son's daughter' in Simovych's example), and an exceptionally rich set of diminutive and endearing ones.

This chapter covers personal and agent nouns (§1), feminine personal nouns and the 2019 norm with measured usage (§2), diminutives, endearments and augmentatives of every word class (§3), abstract and action nouns (§4), other noun suffixes (§5), adjective suffixes (§6) and verb suffixes (§7). It ends with the counts of productivity (§8) and with how Mova handles suffixes (§9). Spelling rules for suffixes are from the 2019 orthography, Український правопис (Pravopys 2019 §§19, 32–34). The sound changes at the suffix boundary (к → ч, г → ж, с → ш and the rest) are in 4. Connected speech. Transliteration as in 16.

1. Personal and agent nouns

1.1 The native agent suffixes

Simovych lists the suffixes that name "what someone does, what someone is": -ар (кобза́р 'kobza player', гонча́р 'potter', столя́р 'joiner'), -ач/-яч (ткач 'weaver', слуха́ч 'listener'), -ич (погони́ч 'drover'), -ник (робітни́к 'worker', вартівни́к 'guard', вла́сник 'owner'), -ак/-як (співа́к 'singer', вояк 'soldier'), -ун (бреху́н 'liar', крику́н 'shouter'), -ух (пасту́х 'herdsman'), -ець (куре́ць 'smoker', швець 'shoemaker', купе́ць 'merchant', боре́ць 'fighter'), -тель (учи́тель 'teacher'), -ло (міня́йло 'swapper', нечита́йло, a surname) (Simovych 1919 §130). The table gives the current state:

Simovych remarks that, of the native agent suffixes, the language "likes most" -ар, -ач, -ник, -ець and avoids -тель, which survives "in very few words": he sets Russian деятель against Ukrainian дія́ч, слушатель against слуха́ч, покупатель against покупе́ць, воспитатель against вихо́вник, мститель against ме́сник (Simovych 1919 §130). The words he opposes have mostly stayed apart, but -тель has kept a firm place in учитель, вихователь, любитель, визволитель. New agent nouns today are made mostly with -ник, -льник, -ець: роботода́вець 'employer', уболіва́льник 'fan'.

The spelling: native -ик, -ник, -івник, -льник are written with и (бра́тик, коля́дник, наста́вник, газівни́к, працівни́к, верста́льник). The loan suffixes -ик/-ік follow the general rule for и/і in loans (істо́рик, ме́дик, фі́зик, but акаде́мік, меха́нік, хі́мік) (Pravopys 2019 §32.1). The suffixes -ець, -тель, -ень always end in ь (боре́ць, учи́тель, у́чень; §32.3).

1.2 -чик / -щик: norm and usage

The agent suffixes -чик/-щик (перевізник vs. перевозчик, підрядник vs. підрядчик) are the clearest case of a word-formation norm that was reversed after 1991. Horodenska describes the history. The type came into Ukrainian through loans from Russian; some old examples keep the Russian shape (закройщик, забойщик, наборщик); in the 1970s and 1980s it spread widely under the language policy of the time. From the 1990s its use for persons was "blocked", and agent nouns in -ник, -льник, -івець became the norm (Horodenska 2025, §1, after Kysliuk 2017). The 2019 orthography drops -чик (-щик) from its rule on agent suffixes (§32.1), which the rule of 1993 still contained. Puriaieva objects that this also removes the productive diminutive -чик (альбо́мчик, база́рчик, дива́нчик, майда́нчик, тюльпа́нчик) from the text, and that the agent -чик still serves to keep words apart (підво́дчик 'one who leads (troops) up' vs. підві́дник, підря́дчик vs. підря́дник) and has no rival in some words (бра́тчик). She proposes to restore it with a statement of its use (Puriaieva 2023, §2).

In the 2024 Leipzig news sample (§8) the reversal is complete for the words Horodenska has in mind:

But some -чик agent nouns are fully at home and have no rival: льо́тчик 'pilot' (330 forms) against the purist летун (1). The diminutive -чик is untouched: хло́пчик 'little boy' 1 118 forms. The norm and the usage move together where a native rival exists and has been taken up, and not where it has not.

1.3 Participles as nouns and the replacing suffix -увач

Substantivised present active participles in -учий/-ючий (завідуючий 'head (of a department)', головуючий 'chair (of a meeting)', відпочиваючі 'holidaymakers') were common in Soviet-era official style. The current norm replaces them with nouns in -увач or -ник: завідувач, відпочивальник (Horodenska 2025, §1, item 3). In the news sample завідувач- has 106 forms against завідуюч- 5. Yet головуючий holds: 21 forms in the news, 11 tokens in the UD ParlaMint parliamentary treebank, and no rival form (головувач 0). The parliamentary chair is called головуючий, and the norm has no replacement in use.

2. Feminine personal nouns

2.1 The suffixes

Feminine nouns for persons (фемінативи, назви осіб жіночої статі) are formed from masculine personal nouns by suffix. The 2019 orthography names four suffixes and their bases (Pravopys 2019 §32.4):

The old native set is wider. Simovych names -иня, -иця, -иха, -уха, -аля (бо́гиня, господи́ня, кня́гиня; цари́ця, робітни́ця, чарівни́ця, вла́сниця; ткаля́) and states the rule that a woman doing a man's occupation gets the masculine name with -ка: учитель — учителька, лікар — лікарка, співак — співачка, слухач — слухачка, брехун — брехунка, пастух — пастушка (Simovych 1919 §131). -Иха now names mainly a wife by her husband's surname or trade (ковали́ха 'the smith's wife') or is pejorative, and -уха is evaluative (брехуха).

Two models outside the suffix list:

• The ending model. A feminine is made with the ending -а and the loss of a vowel in the suffix: підліток — підлітка 'teenage girl', свідок — сві́дка 'female witness'. Synchak and Starko describe this model as one that dictionaries had ignored (Synchak & Starko 2022, §4).
• Compounds. Жінка- + masculine noun: жінка-водій 'woman driver', жінка-військовослужбовець; or жінка- + feminine noun: жінка-мусульманка. The model is "universal and frequent" in the General Regionally Annotated Corpus of Ukrainian (GRAC) and absent from the large dictionaries (Synchak & Starko 2022, §3.1).

2.2 History and norm

Feminine personal nouns are old in Ukrainian dictionaries. Zyzanij's lexicon of 1596 has seven, Hrinchenko's dictionary of 1907–1909 has 935 (а́вторка, лі́карка, маля́рка, сві́дка, співробі́тниця), and the Russian-Ukrainian dictionary of the Academy edited by Krymskyj and Jefremov in the 1920s gives 2 117 as equivalents of Russian headwords (народозна́виця, музиколю́бка, літу́нка). Soviet-era dictionaries narrowed the set. The current 20-volume dictionary (SUM-20) adds some forms but leaves out all derivatives in -ин(я) (Synchak & Starko 2022, §2).

The 2019 orthography made feminine derivation part of the spelling code. That decision is debated. Puriaieva argues that the rules of §32.4 regulate word formation and not spelling, that the questions of where a feminine form is possible, of stylistic restrictions and of masculina tantum are not settled, and that the rules should therefore be removed from the orthography until a grammar settles them (Puriaieva 2023, §2). Arkhanhelska, comparing Czech and Ukrainian lexicography, asks which feminine forms a monolingual dictionary should register as headwords, how to show their derivation and variants, and when the label розм. 'colloquial' is justified. For Ukrainian, she says, only part of the feminine nouns that have become stylistically neutral is given in dictionaries without restricting labels (Arkhanhelska 2022).

The 2019 text and the usage work in the same direction here. The text's examples — авторка, директорка, редакторка, філологиня — are forms that were already spreading in the press, and the codification gave them standing.

2.3 Measured usage

GRAC (Synchak & Starko 2022, §3.1). Feminine personal nouns occur over 2.8 million times in the 860-million-token corpus (over 4 000 per million). By suffix:

The authors' Web Dictionary of Ukrainian Feminine Personal Nouns (2 000 headwords, 2022) was compiled from this corpus. Of its headwords, 36% were in no other dictionary. They estimate 6 000–9 000 feminine personal nouns in current use. They also trace продавщиця 'saleswoman', close to Russian продавщица and the only form in the Soviet dictionary SUM-11. It dominated until about 2010, while продавчиня rose from almost nothing from the late 1980s onward, became equal around 2010 and then took the lead. Продавниця, a form of the 1920s dictionaries, peaked in the 1930s and has been rare since. A language panel of 33 writers, linguists and translators was polled on 41 hard cases (фізикиня, фізичка or фізиця 'female physicist'). Panel and compiler mostly agreed, but split on 'female critic' (критикиня, критикеса, критиця).

Synchak's study of 76 military feminine nouns in the same dictionary (5% of its headwords) finds that 67.4% of them arose between 2014 and 2022 and are missing from the explanatory dictionaries (адміра́лка, військовослужбо́виця, мінерка, снайперка, танкістка). The more frequent of two rival forms is usually the one built on the better native model: військовослужбовиця over військовослужбовка, доброво́лиця over доброво́лка, миротво́риця over миротво́рка. Наводчиця, a Russian-pattern form, is rare beside наві́дниця (Synchak 2023).

VESUM (release 6.8.6, counts only). Among common-noun lemmas tagged animate and feminine, not marked bad (8 575 entries), the endings are distributed as follows: -ка 4 741, -иця 2 187, -иня 428 (of them 36 in -чиня), -иха 95, -еса 32, -ша 23, -иса 9. Most of the -иня entries are new learned feminines on -лог: вірусологиня, антропологиня, кардіоревматологиня, фразеологиня. VESUM has more lemmas in -иця than in -иня, and GRAC has more tokens in -иня than in -иця. The -иня forms are few but frequent.

Leipzig news 2024 (counts of 2026-11-06 of all lower-case word forms beginning with the string; capitalised forms and compounds such as прем'єр-міністерка are left out, so the figures are lower than those of 06 §6.3, which count capitalised forms too). Feminine forms against the masculine forms of the same word (masculine counted with its case endings only; the masculine is also used for women and generically, so the ratio is not a share of reference to women):

In 2024 news there is about one feminine form to seven masculine ones for депутат and директор, and near parity for блогер. Продавчиня has fully replaced продавщиця, and міністерка has won against міністриня.

UD Ukrainian 2.18. Among animate feminine nouns, -ка forms 307 tokens in IU (where жінка, дівка, дочка lead; the treebank includes fiction) and 20 in ParlaMint (депута́тка 10, викладачка 3, міністерка 1, лідерка 1). -Иця forms 38 and 7 tokens, -иня 12 and 0.

3. Diminutives, endearments and augmentatives

3.1 What they are and how much they are used

Simovych calls diminutive and endearing words "a curious and very characteristic phenomenon of Ukrainian" and notes that they exist not only for nouns and adjectives but also for pronouns, numerals, verbs and adverbs (Simovych 1919 §112). "Almost every noun" has a diminutive. The people use them "gladly and on every occasion": with children, to win sympathy, in grief and in joy, between lovers, in verse, "and also simply in ordinary speech" (§112).

The diminutive suffixes carry two meanings that usually come together: small size (будинок → будиночок 'little house') and affection or politeness (чаю → чайку 'a bit of tea', хвилиночку 'just a moment'). In many words the size meaning has gone and only the affection or a new lexical meaning remains: ру́чка 'small hand; handle; pen', ні́жка 'small leg; leg of a table', ли́чко 'little face' and also the bast of a lime tree. Some have lost the meaning of size altogether and replaced their base: сонце (from old сълньце, a diminutive), ві́дерце beside відро́, мале́нький as the everyday word for 'small' beside мали́й.

The suffixes form chains of a first and second degree (дуб → ду́бок → ду́бочок; рука → ру́чка → ру́чечка; камінь → камі́нець → камі́нчик → камінчичок, in Simovych's example камінь, камінець, каміньчик, каміньчичок, камінюка, камінище: §105.1).

3.2 Nouns: the suffixes by gender

Simovych's table (§113), with current spellings:

Masculine.

Feminine.

Neuter.

The -еня/-я nouns (кошеня́ 'kitten', вовченя́ 'wolf cub', теля́ 'calf', курча́ 'chick', дівча́ 'girl') name the young of animals and children. They are neuter and have the stem -ят- in the plural and oblique cases (кошеня́ — кошеня́ти — кошеня́та; 11. Nouns). The suffix is -ен-(я) with е (вовченя́, гусеня́, совеня́, чаєня́; Pravopys 2019 §32.7).

Spelling of the diminutive suffixes. The 2019 orthography regulates four points (§32.8–10, 13):

• -ечок (-єчок), -ечк-(а), -ечк-(о) with е: верше́чок, міше́чок, крає́чок, ді́жечка, копі́єчка, Марі́єчка, віко́нечко, слове́чко, яє́чко; to be kept apart from -ичок, -ичк-(а) in но́жичок, трави́чка (where the и belongs to -ик-, -иц-);
• -еньк-(о, а) for endearments, -енк-(о) for surnames: ба́тенько, кониче́нько, се́рденько, ні́женька, топо́ленька, за́єнько against Кра́вченко, Мусіє́нко, безба́тченко;
• -ок after a consonant, with о dropped in the oblique cases (вершо́к — вершка́, гайо́к, кийо́к, стручо́к); ь before it after a soft consonant (деньо́к, пеньо́к);
• the augmentative -иськ-(о), -ищ-(е) after a consonant, -їськ-(о), -їщ-(е) after a vowel: дівчи́сько, хлопчи́сько, гної́сько; во́гнище, побо́їще.

Names. Personal names have whole sets of familiar and endearing forms: Іва́н — Іва́нко, Іва́сь, Іва́сик; Марі́я — Марі́йка, Марі́чка, Мару́ся, Мару́сенька, Марі́єчка; Петро — Петрик, Петрусь; Олекса́ндр — Сашко́; Окса́на — Окса́нка. In western speech forms in -ньо, -сьо, -цьо for men are common: Ю́рцьо, Вла́дзьо, Ти́мко (with -ко). The vocative of these forms is used in address (Іва́сю!, Марусе́нько!; 11. Nouns).

3.3 Augmentatives and pejoratives

Augmentative suffixes make a thing large and usually coarse or frightening: -ище (вовчи́ще 'huge wolf', ручи́ще 'huge hand', вітри́ще 'gale'), -исько (хлопчи́сько, дівчи́сько, вовчи́сько), -юга, -яка, -ака, -уга (злодю́га 'thief (pej.)', собаця́ка 'dog (coarse)', дідуга́н 'big old man'). The 2019 text gives -иськ-(о), -ищ-(е) "mainly a negative emotional colouring". Puriaieva points out that this is imprecise: -ище is first of all augmentative, the counterpart of the diminutive, and its expressiveness can be positive as well (Pravopys 2019 §32.10; Puriaieva 2023, §2).

The same -ище also forms place nouns with no augmentative meaning: пасови́ще 'pasture', схо́вище 'storage, shelter', городи́ще 'hillfort site', кладови́ще 'cemetery', бомбосхо́вище 'bomb shelter'. The two are homonyms. In the place nouns the base is a verb or a noun of activity (схова́ти → схо́вище, пасти́ → пасови́ще).

3.4 Adjectives, pronouns and numerals

Adjectives have endearing and intensifying forms with their own suffixes (Simovych 1919 §114):

Pronouns and numerals take the same suffixes: сам — саме́нький, самі́сінький; весь — усе́нький; оди́н — одне́нький, одні́сінький; ніщо — нічо́гісінько 'nothing at all' (Simovych 1919 §112, 114). These forms are used in emphatic speech: Він був там сам-самі́сінький 'He was there all alone' — combined with reduplication (18 §5).

The spelling of the intensifying adjectives follows the morpheme: -есеньк- with е after a hard stem (гарне́сенький), -ісіньк- (чорні́сінький). The adverbs from them end in -о: тихе́сенько, ранесе́нько, рівнесенько.

3.5 Verbs and adverbs

Verbs have endearing forms only in nursery speech and in folk lament and song (Simovych 1919 §115): спа́ти — спа́тки, спа́тоньки, спату́сі; ї́сти — ї́стки, ї́сточки; ходи́ти — ходу́ні, ходу́нечки; гуля́ти — гуля́точки; роби́ти — роби́тоньки; купа́ти — ку́пці. They are infinitive-like forms with no conjugation: Ходи спатоньки 'Come and sleep (sweetie)'. In folk song they also fit the metre and the rhyme. Simovych's examples include Бо як будеш сваритоньки, то я буду плакатоньки and Ševčenko's спаточки хочеш?. On songs as a register of their own see 37. Register and variation and 8. Regional varieties, diaspora and surzhyk.

Adverbs (Simovych 1919 §116): тут — ту́течки, ту́теньки; так — та́кечки (отта́кечки); там — та́мечки, та́меньки; тепер — тепе́речки, тепе́реньки; сидячи — сидя́чки; очевидно — очеви́дячки. Present-day colloquial speech keeps ту́течки, отако́ньки, тихе́нько, поти́хеньку, and with nouns хвили́ночку 'just a minute', секу́ндочку.

3.6 How often: register measured

Diminutives are a matter of register. They are frequent in fiction, folklore and talk to children, and rare in official and news prose. Three corpora counted on 2026-11-06 show the size of the difference for the adjective suffixes (all forms ending in the suffix plus an adjectival ending; -еньк- includes the frequent lexicalised маленький):

(pm = per million word tokens.) Fiction uses about four times as many -еньк- adjectives as press texts of the same corpus and about six times as many -ісіньк- ones. The 2024 news, short wire-style texts, uses fewer still. In UD Ukrainian the same contrast holds: IU, which contains fiction, has 23 tokens of маленький, 5 of малесенький, 3 of самісінький and others (низенький, гладенький, тоненький, старенький, молоденький, коротенький). ParlaMint has one маленький and one слабенький in 109 166 words.

For nouns, the 2024 news counts show diminutives where they are lexicalised or kin terms: хлопчик- 1 118 forms and дівчинк- 1 045 (the everyday words for 'boy' and 'girl' as children), бабус- 570, дідус- 239, донечк- 280, матус- 92, котик- 89, песик- 71, кошеня 92, цуценя 75.

4. Abstract and action nouns

4.1 Nouns of quality: -ість, -ота, -ина, -изна, -ощі

-Ість (feminine, 3rd declension) is the productive suffix for nouns of quality from adjectives and participles: сві́жість 'freshness', зда́тність 'ability', ві́дповідальність 'responsibility', незале́жність 'independence'. With adjectives in -нний it keeps both н: зако́нний — зако́нність (Pravopys 2019 §29.3). The genitive singular is -ості or, as a variant admitted since 2019, -ости (незале́жності and незале́жности; Pravopys 2019 §95; 11. Nouns). Older or less productive suffixes of quality: -от-(а) (доброта́, чистота́, широта́), -ин-(а) (глибина́, тишина́, ширина́), -изн-(а) (білизна́ 'linen', новизна́, кривизна́), -ощ-(і) plural (радощі 'joy', пестощі 'caresses', ласощі 'sweets').

4.2 Nouns of action: -ння, -ття and the zero suffix

Every imperfective verb, and many perfective ones, makes a verbal noun in -ння (neuter): чита́ння, пита́ння, навча́ння, будува́ння, ході́ння. After the -ти of one-syllable roots the suffix is -ття: життя́, відкриття́, взуття́, пиття́, забуття́. The spelling (Pravopys 2019 §32.5) is always with double нн. Its shape depends on the base:

• -інн-(я) from verbs with the stem vowel и, і: горі́ти — горі́ння, носи́ти — носі́ння, ходи́ти — ході́ння;
• -анн-(я)/-янн-(я) from verbs with а/я: гука́ння, гуля́ння, зроста́ння, сприя́ння;
• -енн-(я) when the stress falls on the root: зве́рнення, напру́ження, підне́сення, удоскона́лення.

-Ування is the action ('the process') and -о́вання the result ('the thing') of the same verb: риштува́ння 'scaffolding (the putting up)' vs. ришто́вання 'scaffolding (the structure)'; упакува́ння 'packing' vs. упако́вання 'packaging' (Pravopys 2019 §34.1). Horodenska notes that this distinction, set out in older dictionaries, was blurred in the Soviet period and is now only slowly being restored (Horodenska 2025).

Many action nouns are made with no suffix (zero suffix, or "back formation" from the verb): ви́хід 'exit' from ви́йти, пере́клад from перекла́сти, біг 'run', крик 'shout', по́спіх 'haste', ро́зпис 'schedule', за́хист 'defence', обмі́н 'exchange', пі́дпис 'signature'.

Feminine nouns in -к-(а) for actions (перевірка 'check', оцінка 'assessment', подача 'submission') are a type the purists call "not proper to Ukrainian": they recommend перевіряння, оцінювання, подавання for the process and say the return of these forms is "very slow" (Horodenska 2025). Usage in the news sample shows how slow it is. Перевірк- has 1 326 forms against перевіряння 1, оцінк- 1 832 against оцінювання 98, подач- 398 against подавання 39. Only оцінювання, the official term in education ('assessment'), has a foothold. Here the norm proposed by part of the profession is ahead of usage, which has not moved.

4.3 Collective and abstract -ство/-цтво

-Ств-(о) forms collectives and states: студе́нтство 'students (collectively)', товари́ство 'society', лю́дство 'mankind', багатство 'wealth', аге́нтство 'agency'. After к, ц, ч it is -цтв-(о) (коза́цтво, тка́цтво, гірни́цтво, парубо́цтво), after г, ж, з it is -зтв-(о) (убо́зтво, боягу́зтво), after х, ш, с it merges as -ств- (товари́ство from товариш) (Pravopys 2019 §19).

4.4 Measured: register again

Among NOUN tokens of UD Ukrainian (counts 2026-11-06):

Parliamentary speech uses almost twice as many verbal nouns as the mixed IU treebank. This is the nominal style of legislation and debate (прийняття́ зако́ну 'adoption of the law', розгляд пита́ння 'consideration of the question').

5. Other noun suffixes

Simovych notes the geography of the surname suffixes: -енко "mostly in central Ukraine", -ук/-юк "in the west: Podillja, Halychyna" (Simovych 1919 §132). The pattern still holds broadly, and it is one of the simplest regional markers in names (8. Regional varieties, diaspora and surzhyk).

Loan suffixes -изм/-ізм, -ист/-іст, -ир/-ір follow the "rule of nine" for и/і in loans: и after д, т, з, с, ц, ж, ч, ш, р (бригади́р, каси́р, бандури́ст, класици́зм, романти́зм), і after other consonants (банкі́р, піані́ст, реалі́зм), ї after vowels (конвої́р, ліцеї́ст, герої́зм). The same suffixes make native-based words: боротьбі́ст, побутові́зм (Pravopys 2019 §32.14; 6. Spelling rules and the 2019 orthography).

6. Adjective suffixes

The renorming of loan adjectives. The most debated current question in adjective formation is the replacement of hybrid suffixes in loan adjectives. Horodenska describes how, since the 1990s, a part of academic writing replaces -ічн-/-ичн-, -альн-, -ивн-, -арн-, -іональн- by the native -н- (rarely -ськ-) attached directly to a noun in -ія: методологі́йний for методологі́чний (from методоло́гія), and in physics terms -логійний, -метрійний for -логічний, -метричний. The idea goes back to Horec'kyj's article of 1930. She finds the renormed forms used consistently in several linguistics monographs and a textbook. Usage in general is "selective, mainly in individual practice", strongest in adjectives from linguistic terms in -ія, -логія, -графія (Horodenska 2025). In the 2024 news sample the renormed forms do not occur: психологічн- 916 forms against психологійн- 0, біологічн- 321 against 0, технологічн- 798 against 0. The renorming lives in the scholarly writing of linguists and has not reached the press.

A smaller renorming has taken hold. Adjectives from feminine nouns in -ка take -ов- (виставко́вий 'exhibition', річко́вий 'river'), not the Soviet-era -очн- (выставочный) (Horodenska 2025). News: виставков- 40, виставочн- 0; річков- 78.

Consonant changes before -ськ- (Pravopys 2019 §19): к, ц, ч + -ськ- → -цьк- (гірни́к — гірни́цький, коза́к — коза́цький, ткач — тка́цький, молоде́ць — молоде́цький); г, ж, з + -ськ- → -зьк- (Пра́га — пра́зький, Запорі́жжя — запорі́зький, Зба́раж — зба́разький, боягу́з — боягу́зький, but ге́рцог — ге́рцогський); х, ш, с + -ськ- → -ськ- (че́ський from чех, воло́ський, товари́ський, but ша́хський, Цю́рихський). Other consonants stay (бра́тський, заводськи́й, студе́нтський, пропаганди́стський).

7. Verb suffixes

Ukrainian verbs fall into a few large suffixal types. Smal-Stockyj and Simovych both count five verbal suffixes besides suffixless verbs: -ну-, -і-, -и-, -а-, -ува- (Smal-Stockyj 1913 §13; Simovych 1919 §227). Suffixless verbs (нести́, везти́, пекти́, стригти́) are a closed set of old imperfectives.

Simovych gives -ну- a particularly expressive variant, -ону- for a sudden strong action: швиргону́ти 'fling', шпигону́ти 'sting', крикону́ти 'let out a shout', грюкону́ти 'bang' (Simovych 1919 §227.2). These forms are colloquial and folk and are still recognised.

Loan verbs and -ір-. Verbs of foreign origin that have the suffix -ір- (-ir-, -ier-) in the source language drop it in Ukrainian: дотува́ти, загітува́ти, зареєструва́ти, лобіюва́ти, поінформува́ти, сконструюва́ти. It is kept only where its loss would make a homonym (букси́рувати because there is буксува́ти, пари́рувати / парува́ти, полірува́ти / полюва́ти, репети́рувати / репетува́ти) and in a few other verbs (коти́рувати, лаві́рувати, марширува́ти, пікі́рувати, солі́рувати) (Pravopys 2019 §34.3). Simovych already calls forms like ілюстрірувати, ігнорірувати in the mouths of educated speakers "obvious Muscovitisms" (Simovych 1919 §228, note).

VESUM counts (verb lemmas not marked bad, by infinitive ending before -ся; 2026-11-06): -ати (all, including -увати) 30 365, of which -увати 15 948, -ювати 4 305, -овувати 1 905; -ити 9 664; -яти 2 222; -ути 2 592, of which -нути 2 479; -іти 1 986. With -ся: 16 847. Verbs in -ува-/-юва- (including -овува-) make up 20 253 of 48 598 entries, about two in five, which matches the productivity of the suffix for loans and new verbs (гуглити takes -и-, лайкати -а-, but модерувати, верифікувати, хештегувати -ува-).

8. Productivity: counts

All counts were made on 2026-11-06.

VESUM (release 6.8.6; CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only). Common-noun lemma entries, excluding proper names, abbreviations and entries marked bad (122 993), by final string. A final string is not a suffix: -ик includes історик (loan suffix) and язик (no suffix). The figures give the order of magnitude, not a morphological analysis:

The dictionary lists verbal nouns in -ння and quality nouns in -ість almost exhaustively, which is why they lead. Diminutives are underrepresented. VESUM includes the established ones (будиночок, хатинка) but not the open class that speakers form on the fly, and only 19 lemma lines carry the dimin tag. -Тель has 162 entries, against 4 423 for -ник and 2 364 for -ець, which bears out Simovych's remark of 1919.

Adjective lemma entries (85 858, not bad, not participles): -ний 36 577 (of which -альний 5 016, -ичний 2 757, -ічний 2 553, -ійний 2 298, -ивний 1 121, -арний 507), -ський 14 182, -цький 2 341, -зький 305, -овий 8 148, -евий 1 026, -євий 251, -ів 1 103, -їв 177, -ин 656, -їн 115, -уватий 944, -юватий 51, -ливий 915, -истий 612, -астий 302, -енький 443, -есенький 84, -ісінький 109, -юсінький 10.

UD Ukrainian 2.18, IU and ParlaMint (IU is CC BY-NC-SA: counts only): see §§2.3, 3.6, 4.4.

Brown-UK (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only): categories A (press) and I (fiction), see §3.6. Leipzig news 2024 (CC BY): §§1.2, 1.3, 2.3, 3.6, 4.2, 6.

9. How Mova handles suffixes

Mova has no derivational analysis of Ukrainian suffixes. No component splits a Ukrainian word into stem and suffix, relates хатинка to хата, директорка to директор or читання to читати, or rates a form as diminutive, feminine or augmentative.

• Every derivative is a separate lemma. Mova's Ukrainian morphology is the kg crate's reader of VESUM (kg/src/morph.rs). It analyses a word form by looking it up in VESUM and synthesises it back from a lemma and a grammar code (Morph::synth). Because VESUM lists бабуся, бабусенька, бабця and баба as four lemmas, kg treats them as four unrelated words with keys бабуся|noun etc. The knowledge graph (kg — the Mova knowledge graph) has no edge from a diminutive or a feminine to its base, so a fact about бабуся is not found by a query about баба.
• Gender and animacy come from the dictionary. The grammar code (kg/src/gram.rs) has 2 bits for gender (m, f, n) and 2 for animacy (anim, inanim, unanim), read from VESUM tags. Директорка is analysed as an animate feminine noun because VESUM says so, not because of its suffix. A new feminine form missing from VESUM (мінерка is there; a fresh coinage may not be) gets no analysis. The sentence parser (kg/src/uk.rs) then rejects the sentence.
• Register labels are dropped. VESUM marks entries arch, slang, rare, bad (non-standard, including surzhyk forms), alt and dimin. Gram::from_vesum keeps none of them (kg/src/gram.rs: unknown tags fall into _ => {}). So Mova cannot tell that a text uses a diminutive, a dated form or a form the dictionary marks as non-standard.
• The English parser sees only the part of speech. On the UD Ukrainian treebanks the English tree parser gets Penn tags from en xpos-fill. A noun becomes NN or NNS and an adjective JJ, whatever its suffix (xpos_of in en/src/main.rs). Its baseline: LAS 73.43 on IU and 79.28 on ParlaMint with its own tags (train → dev, 2026-11-06).

What would be needed. A suffix segmenter trained on VESUM lemma pairs with a check against a hand-made gold list, as described for prefixes in 16 §9. Then a derivational layer in the graph: edges diminutive-of, feminine-of, action-noun-of, quality-noun-of between lemmas, so that хатинка → хата and директорка → директор are linked. And the VESUM register tags kept in the grammar code or alongside it. The spare 5 bits in Gram could hold a register field, but VESUM is NC, so for a release the labels would have to come from an open source (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA, under its own terms). None of this is built.

Sources for this chapter

• Український правопис (2019), approved by Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 437 of 22 May 2019: §§19, 29, 32 (items 1–14), 33 (items 1–7), 34. Official document, not protected by copyright. Library books/u/uk/ukrainskyi-pravopys-2019 (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. §§105, 112–116 (diminutives and endearments of all classes), §§130–132 (agent and feminine nouns, surnames), §§227–228 (verbal suffixes). 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. §§11–13 (suffixes of nouns, adjectives, verbs). Public domain. Library books/s/st/stockyj-1913-ruthenische-grammatik (uk-gram-smal-stockyj-1913).
• Synchak, Olena & Vasyl Starko. 2022. Ukrainian feminine personal nouns in online dictionaries and corpora. COLINS 2022, CEUR-WS Vol. 3171, 775–790. CC BY 4.0 (synchak-2022-feminine-dictionaries). ceur-ws.org/Vol-3171
• Synchak, Olena. 2023. Military feminine personal nouns: a corpus-based update to the Web Dictionary of Ukrainian Feminine Personal Nouns. eLex 2023. CC BY-SA 4.0: paraphrased, not copied (synchak-2023-military-feminine).
• Arkhanhelska, A. M. 2022. Linhvistyčni j texnolohični zasady leksykohrafuvannja feminatyviv: čes'kyj dosvid i ukrajins'ka perspektyva. Movoznavstvo 5. CC BY-SA 4.0: paraphrased (arkhanhelska-2022-feminatyvy-leksykohrafiia).
• Puriaieva, N. V. 2023. Problemy pravopysu prefiksiv i sufiksiv v «Ukrajins'komu pravopysi» 2019 roku. Ukrajins'ka mova 2(86). Library card CC BY 4.0; the article prints CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, so paraphrased only (puriaieva-2023-prefiksy-sufiksy).
• Horodenska, K. H. 2025. Perevnormuvannja u slovotvorenni ukrajins'koji literaturnoji movy. Ukrajins'ka mova 2(94). Library card CC BY 4.0; the article prints CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, so paraphrased only (horodenska-2025-perevnormuvannia).
• Melymuka et al. 2017 (melymuka-2017-modeling-derivational-morphology-ukrainian, CC BY 4.0) for the homonymy of feminine and diminutive -к-.
• VESUM (dict_uk), release 6.8.6, dict_corp_vis.txt.bz2. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only.
• Brown-UK corpus (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, counts only), categories A and I, brown-uk.
• Leipzig ukr_news_2024_1M (CC BY; Goldhahn, Eckart & Quasthoff 2012).
• UD Ukrainian IU and ParlaMint 2.18; counts of 2026-11-06.
• Mova: kg/src/morph.rs, kg/src/gram.rs, kg/src/uk.rs, kg — the Mova knowledge graph, en/src/main.rs.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/17-derivation-suffixes/