The second, supplemented edition of the book discusses the problems of historical word formation, historical semasiology and historical morphemics in terms of the dynamics of processes and relations in the development of the word formation system of the Russian language. From the same position, the phenomena of word-forming synonymy, antonymy and homonymy and their interaction in the course of the historical development of the language are studied. Particular attention is paid to the historical and stylistic aspect of word formation. The book is intended for philologists, as well as for a wide range of readers interested in the historical fate of the Russian language.