Pysaty and Napysaty: Perfective and Imperfective Aspect in Ukrainian Verbs

The Ukrainian word for “to write” is писати (pysaty). But when you want to say something like “[he/she] finished writing the letter,” a different verb appears: написати (napysaty). If you look them up in a dictionary, писати carries the abbreviation недок. and написати carries док. These two abbreviations mark the verb’s “aspect” (вид, vyd).

Below, we explain what aspect is, how perfective/imperfective pairs are formed, and how aspect relates to tense and the imperative, based on the descriptions in Українська мова. Енциклопедія (the Ukrainian Language Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, 2004, compiled by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine’s O. O. Potebnia Institute of Linguistics and Institute of the Ukrainian Language; referred to below as “the Encyclopedia”), the 2019 edition of the orthography rules (правопис), and the Academy’s Словник української мови (the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language — both the online 20-volume edition and the 11-volume edition). This was confirmed as of September 2026.

What Is Aspect?

The Encyclopedia’s entry for “вид” (aspect) defines it as “a grammatical category of the verb specific to Ukrainian and other Slavic languages.” In terms of meaning, it explains that two forms stand opposed to each other depending on whether the continuation of the action is bounded (доконаний вид, perfective aspect) or unbounded (недоконаний вид, imperfective aspect).

The entry for the perfective aspect states that it denotes “an action bounded from within,” and lists as examples of how this boundary appears: the start of an action (заговорити, “to start talking”), its end (прийти, “to arrive”), a single, often sudden action (стукнути, “to knock/tap once”), and the result of an action.

The entry “Ukrainian language” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, likewise states that the only truly productive category running through all verb forms is the perfective/imperfective aspect, and that, as a rule, every verb appears in one or the other of these two aspects.

How Are Perfective/Imperfective Pairs Formed?

According to the Encyclopedia, over the 20th century aspect came to be understood as a pair of two verbs (видова пара, an “aspect pair”) with the same or nearly the same meaning. The two members of a pair also behave the same way in a sentence — taking a noun in the same case with the same preposition, for example (читати що, про що — прочитати що, про що, “to read something, about something”). Pairs are mainly formed in three ways.

Method	Example (imperfective — perfective)	Encyclopedia entry
Adding a prefix	писати — написати (“to write”), робити — зробити (“to do/make”), бити — побити (“to hit”)	“вид”
Changing the suffix	купувати — купити (“to buy”), пускати — пустити (“to let go”), стрибати — стрибнути (“to jump”)	“доконаний вид”
Forming an imperfective with a suffix from a prefixed perfective	розбити → розбивати (“to break”), продати → продавати (“to sell”)	“вид,” “доконаний вид”
Using a different root	брати — взяти (“to take”), ловити — піймати (“to catch”), бити — ударити (“to hit/strike”)	“суплетивізм”
One form expressing both	абсорбувати (“to absorb”), авансувати (“to pay in advance”), женити (“to marry [someone] off”), веліти (“to order”), мовити (“to say”)	“вид,” “доконаний вид”

A Prefix Can Also Add Meaning

A prefix does not always change only the aspect. The Encyclopedia contrasts бігти — добігти (“to run” — “to run [and] arrive”), where both a locational meaning and the aspect change, and бити — добити (“to hit” — “to finish off”), where both a resultative meaning and the aspect change, with писати — написати, where only the aspect changes. It also notes that for some perfective verbs formed with a prefix marking a beginning or an end, such as заболіти (“to start hurting”) or переболіти (“to get over an illness”), no matching imperfective pair is formed.

In other words, seeing a prefixed verb alone does not tell you whether it is simply the aspectual partner of another verb, or a separate verb with a different meaning.

Is the Partner of прочитати читати, or прочитувати?

Which two verbs count as a pair can be shown differently in different sources. The Encyclopedia gives читати — прочитати as an example of a pair, and its entry on the future tense likewise pairs прочитаю (“[I] will read [through]”) with читаю (“[I am] reading”). The online 20-volume dictionary, on the other hand, groups прочитати together with ПРОЧИ́ТУВАТИ (imperfective) in a single entry, headed “ПРОЧИ́ТУВАТИ, ую, уєш, недок., ПРОЧИТА́ТИ, а́ю, а́єш, док.” The 11-volume dictionary’s entry for ЧИТАТИ marks it only недок.

When you consult a dictionary, you can see which words it treats as a pair from the недок./док. abbreviation next to the headword, and from a definition phrased like “Док. до писа́ти” (“perfective of pysaty”). The 20-volume dictionary defines НАПИСА́ТИ as “Док. до писа́ти 1–3, 5,” showing it is the perfective for only some of писати’s senses. How to read a dictionary’s headwords and abbreviations is covered in “Type лютого and Get ‘Lutheran’: How to Use a Ukrainian Dictionary.”

Tense and Aspect: Only Imperfective Verbs Have a Present Tense

The past tense can be formed from either aspect (писав, “was writing/wrote”; написав, “finished writing”). The difference shows up in the present and future. The Encyclopedia’s entry on the perfective aspect states that no present tense is formed from a perfective verb. A perfective verb with the same endings as the present tense (напишу) instead expresses the future.

Three Forms for Expressing the Future

The Encyclopedia’s entry “майбутній час” (future tense) lists three forms for the future. The 2019 edition of the orthography rules shows the same distinction in §115.8.

Form	Example	Aspect it can be formed from	How it is formed
складена (“periphrastic”)	буду писати (“[I] will write”)	Imperfective only	The future of бути (буду, будеш…) + the infinitive
складна (“fused/synthetic”)	писатиму, ходитиму, пектиму	Imperfective only	Infinitive + -му, -меш, -ме… (endings descended from the personal forms of the old verb яти)
проста (“simple”)	напишу, зроблю	Perfective only	A perfective verb with present-tense endings

The Encyclopedia treats the form where the ending fuses onto the infinitive (писатиму) as one of the distinctive phenomena of Ukrainian grammar. It also notes that in southwestern dialects, the element corresponding to the ending can be placed before the infinitive instead, as in му писати, меш читати. The orthography rules add that some perfective verbs without a prefix — грімну (“[will] thunder”), ляжу (“[will] lie down”), пущу (“[will] let go”), стукну (“[will] knock”) — likewise express the future with present-tense endings.

According to the Encyclopedia, the perfective future form denotes an action that occurs after the moment the speaker is speaking, while the imperfective present denotes an action overlapping with that moment. The same entry cautions, however, that the perfective future form also has a figurative use denoting something that repeated in the past.

Examples of the Imperative

The imperative can also be formed from either aspect. §116 of the orthography rules gives пиши, пишімо, пишіть from писати, and бери, берімо, беріть from брати, as examples. The Encyclopedia’s entry “спосіб” (mood) shows зроби, зробімо, зробіть formed from the perfective зробити.

Dictionary examples show imperatives of both aspects.

• Perfective: «Напишіть про себе, що поробляєте, чим заняті» (“Write about yourself, what you’re doing, what you’re busy with” — Kotsiubynsky). Example from the 20-volume dictionary’s entry НАПИСА́ТИ
• Imperfective: «не можна просьбою – бери силою!» (“If asking won’t do, take it by force!” — Panas Myrny). Example from the 20-volume dictionary’s entry БРА́ТИ
• Perfective: «ні, ти зроби його з води!» (“No, you make it out of water!” — Lesia Ukrainka). Example from the 20-volume dictionary’s entry ЗРОБИ́ТИ
• Imperfective: «а робіть те, що самі знаєте» (“Just do what you yourself know [to do]” — Dovzhenko). Example from the 20-volume dictionary’s entry РОБИ́ТИ

The orthography rules note that for the perfective verbs доповісти (“to report”) and розповісти (“to tell”), the imperative ordinarily used is доповідай, розповідай, formed instead from the imperfective доповідати, розповідати. However, no general rule for which aspect’s imperative to choose in which situation appears in the materials used for this article.

It Does Not Map One-to-One Onto Japanese’s “-Is/Was -Ing” and “-Ed”

It is tempting to map aspect onto Japanese’s own “-is/was -ing” (ongoing) and “-ed” (completed), but it does not work that neatly. In the 20-volume dictionary’s example for писати, «А писав [Йосип] – куди краще від самого дяка» (“And Yosyp wrote far better than the deacon [дяк] himself”), the imperfective past писав expresses skill at writing, not a single completed act of writing. In Japanese this could be translated either as a simple past or as a continuous/habitual past.

In «Юрко вистругав маленьку дощечку, написав кілька слів» (“Yurko whittled a small board and wrote a few words” — Nechui-Levytsky), by contrast, написав is a single, completed act of writing. In Japanese, both examples could end up rendered the same way. Conversely, the imperfective present пише can be translated either as an ongoing “is writing” or a habitual “writes,” while the perfective напишу is most often rendered as a future “will write [and finish].”

You will make fewer mistakes if you keep in mind that Japanese “-ta” marks tense, while Ukrainian aspect marks whether an action is bounded — these are two separate things. The correspondences drawn in this paragraph are a rough guide the editorial team has offered for understanding, not a description found in a grammar.

How the Term “Aspect” Changed Over Time

According to the Encyclopedia’s entries for “вид” and “доконаний вид,” the following history led to today’s terminology.

Year	Event	Source
1619	Meletii Smotrytsky uses the term “вид” for the first time, in a grammar of Church Slavonic — though with a different meaning than today’s	Encyclopedia, “вид”
1755	Lomonosov’s grammar does not treat aspect as an independent grammatical category, but as a form tied to tense	Same as above
First half of the 19th century	Kopitar, Vostokov, Yakiv Holovatsky, and others treat aspect as an independent category of the verb	Same as above
1907	Yevhen Tymchenko, in Українська граматика, uses the terms “доконаний вид” and “недоконаний вид” in their present-day sense	Encyclopedia, “доконаний вид”
20th century	Aspect comes to be understood as a pair of two verbs with the same or nearly the same meaning	Encyclopedia, “вид”

Old Names and Today’s Names

Smotrytsky divided the verb into two: what he called “первообразный” or “совершенный,” and what he called “производный” (further split into “начинательный” and “учащательный”). The word “совершенный” (“completed”), close to today’s name for the perfective, was already in use — but according to the Encyclopedia, the verbs he gave as examples of it, such as чту and стою, are all actually imperfective. The same entry states that his division should really have been called “non-derived verbs,” “derived verbs,” and “repeated action.” The доконаний/недоконаний pairing used today traces back to Tymchenko’s 1907 grammar.

A Word-Formation Mechanism, or Grammar?

Scholars have differed over where to place aspect. According to the Encyclopedia, most researchers who treated aspect as an independent category in the first half of the 19th century saw it as a matter of word formation (словотвір), while Vostokov and others saw it as a matter of morphology (морфологія). The Encyclopedia itself takes the position that word formation and morphology are intertwined in aspect pairs, and that this shows the process by which aspect became a full grammatical category is still not complete.