Historical word-formation in Slavic

Slavic languages have a unique feature in word-formation that sets them apart from other Indo-European languages. This feature is the high degree of productivity of affixation, where derivation is more significant than compounding. Affixes, especially suffixes in noun formation, offer a wide range of possibilities. This phenomenon is a result of changes that occurred over time in the structure of Proto-Slavonic, leading to a gradual shift of morpheme boundaries in the word. As a result, the number and formal complexity of suffixes increased, which helped to solidify the semantic categories of word-formation. Additionally, the word-formation systems of the written standard languages in the Slavia Orthodoxa were also influenced by the peculiarities of word-formation in Old Church Slavonic.