Perfective dozapisyvat' – real or fake?

The paper discusses perfective verbs like dozapisyvat’ or dovyšivat’ in which, contrary to what current theories of Russian verb formation would have predicted, a positionally restricted prefix attaches above secondary imperfective morphology. In the first part of the paper it is shown that the phenomenon is real, and should not be denied or ignored. In the second part it is argued that the otherwise observed prohibition of positionally restricted prefixes over secondary imperfective suffixes is a case of pragmatic blocking. It is proposed that perfective verbs like dozapisyvat’ are possible because in the specific case of do- the morphological blocking mechanism may be suspended under certain contextual circumstances, i.e. when reference is made to the final element within a sequence of completed events describable by the verb without this prefix.