The article examines prefixation models of verbal terms and near-term words which were deformed during the 30s – 80s of the 20th century. The relevance of this research is caused by the necessity to get rid of undesirable lexical and word-formation calques from Russian that deform the meaning of verbal terms and do not satisfy the needs of specialists in different branches of science.
The aim of this research is to describe formal and semantic properties of prefixation models of verbal terms which were changed under the influence of extralinguistic factors, Russification in particular. Using data from dictionaries of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this paper focuses on the productivity of prefixes in different periods of evolution of Ukrainian terminological systems, the influence of Russian on Ukrainian verbal terms and those word-formation models which became more productive as result of Soviet Union language politics.
It has been established that most prefixation models are common in the dictionaries of all the three periods. The most productive verbal prefixes are по- (17,5%), на- (16,39%), за- (11,14%), while prefixes в- (2,69%), про- (2,39%), роз- (1,85%), о- (1,44%) are used rarely.
Among the prefixes whose semantics was broadened under the influence of Russian there are від- and о-. In the dictionaries of the 30s – 80s of the 20th century the productivity of prefix від- has greatly increased to denote a completed action in verbs united by the word-formation models «to create something» and «to give the surface of an object a new look or feature». In these words prefix від- substituted prefixes ви- and по-, which were widely used in terminology in the 20s of the 20th century.
The broadened semantics of prefix о- in verbs that mean «to coat the whole surface with something» and «to give the whole surface of an object a new look or feature» is also unjustified. This observation and research of other linguist prove that in this case word-formation models with prefix об- are more inherent. Moreover, in dictionaries of the 30s – 80s the number of verbs formed with prefix o- meaning «to acquire a new features as a result of spontaneous process» has risen. On the one hand, the changes could have been caused by the Russian influence. On the other hand, this may have happened because of the law of analogy to words meaning «to give the object a new feature as a result of external action».
From the 30s of the 20th century the number of lexical calques from Russian has risen besides word-formation. In the dictionaries of the 30s – 80s words that are similar to Russian by form are dominant, while native Ukrainian words that were widely used in the 20s of the 20th century were not registered at all or were marked as those used rarely, archaic or dialect. In this way the usage of native Ukrainian terms was limited. Russian calques substituted native Ukrainian words within the whole family of words.
In conclusion, for a long time the rules of terminology creation depended on the political situation. The situation when terminology is created in view of the rules of the Ukrainian language is the most advanced, as it was in the 20s of the 20th century. Observing terminology of this period proves that dictionaries of «golden decade» are a good source of replenishing current terminology with new terms and word-formation models. Further work with these sources will definitely contribute to the normalization of terminology with the consideration of features of the Ukrainian language.