HISTORICAL DYNAMICS OF FEMINITIVE FORMATION WITHIN THE WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE: FROM FOLK TRADITION TO LANGUAGE POLICY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the historical dynamics of feminitive formation within the word-formation system of the Ukrainian language – from folk speech to modern language policy. The authors analyze feminitives as both linguistic and sociocultural units shaped by social, cultural, and ideological factors.The paper explores the emergence of feminitives in vernacular Ukrainian, where they arose spontaneously as a reflection of women’s social roles, and their subsequent consolidation in written sources. Special attention is given to the role of feminitives in Ukrainian literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries as a means of aestheticizing and conceptualizing female subjectivity.The study examines the impact of Soviet ideology on the use of feminitives, which led to their stagnation in official and public communication due to a gender-neutral ideological stance. In contrast, the post-independence period in Ukraine has witnessed a revival of feminitives as part of the broader processes of derussification and democratization of the linguistic space, bolstered by contemporary feminist discourse and international gender equality standards.Significant attention is paid to the linguistic aspects of feminitive formation, particularly the most common suffixes (-k(a), -yts(ia), -yn(ia), -esa), as well as alternative strategies such as compounds with pani and analytical constructions. The article also addresses the phenomenon of androcentrism in the Ukrainian language and the role of gender linguistics in studying linguistic units with regard to gender identity.The importance of the new edition of the Ukrainian Orthography (2019), which officially affirmed the appropriateness and possibility of forming feminitives, is especially emphasized. This has contributed to their institutionalization and recognition as part of the language norm. The article concludes that feminitives are not only the product of grammatical processes but also markers of the democratization of linguistic space. Prospects for further research are outlined, including stylistic variation, reception of linguistic innovation, and the codification of feminine forms in normative practice.