Multiple prefixation of the Russian verb in a dictionary: Stacking, imperfectivability, and deperfectivity

The paper presents the results of testing the theory of multiple prefixation in Slavic — and more specifically, Russian — verbs, which is based on the distinction between «internal» and «external» prefixes. The analysis draws on dictionary data compiled through exhaustive sampling, including the set of prefixed perfective verbs from the Small Academic Dictionary (MAS) and a subset of polyprefixal perfectives. The study examines several parameters: the potential for prefix stacking, examined in terms of a prefix’s position relative to the verb root and the left periphery, the imperfectivability of both mono- and polyprefixal perfectives, and the final stage of a verb’s derivational history in terms of the perfectivity of the base. Various statistical tools and data visualization techniques were employed to analyze the linguistic data. The study finds no empirical support for the core claim of the multiple prefixation theory — namely, the division of verbal prefixes into «internal» and «external» classes, with the latter functioning simultaneously as Aktionsart markers and occupying the left periphery of the verb. This conclusion is drawn because none of the tested criteria — imperfectivability of the prefixed verb, the perfectivity of the base, or the prefix’s position (root-adjacent vs. left-peripheral) — support the proposed division. At the same time, the analysis validates Sergey G. Tatevosov’s classification of Russian verbal prefixes into selectively restricted, positionally restricted, and left-peripheral (the latter represented by the distributive prefix po-), which, in the original framework, are treated as subclasses of the «external» prefixes.