HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF OLD PRUSSIAN

HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF OLD PRUSSIAN
*-ai /*-ei, in which Pr. adv. *-ei (qu-ei ‘where’) originates in its turn, cf.
Lith. -i…e (nam-i…e, or-i…e), cf. BS 127 ff., Rosinas Baltistica XXXIV 179 37 .
An opinion that the inflection -ai in the first part of the compound
sallubai busennis (III) is locative (Endzelîns SV 58 f.), seems to be doubtful
(cf. PEÞ IV 51 f. s.v. sallubai).
* 96. Nom. pl. masc. Balt. *-ai > Pr. *-ai, cf.: wijrai (III) ‘men’,
tawai (III, voc. pl.) ‘fathers’, grîkai (III) ‘sins’. The same Pr. -ai is reflected
in pallapsaey (II 5 , I 5 ) ‘commandments’ with an accented final
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circumflex *-ãi rendered as -aey (i.e. reflecting a lenthened first component
of the diphthong, cf. PEÞ III 215, as well as * 4). For the a-stem (i.e.
a/e-stem) inflection Balt. (pron. adj.) *-ei cf. BS 170 ff., as well as * 164.
* 97. Nom.(-acc.) pl. neut. inflection is usually seen (due to
OSl. nom.-acc. pl. neut. vrat-a < IE *-`) in Pr. (E) warto ‘door’ (e.g.
Endzelîns SV 59, Stang Vergl. Gr. 301) with Pr. (E) -¯É = *-`. Nevertheless
it is not easy to say whether there still existed an a-stem neutral
plural form of nominative-accusative in the time of (E) in Prussian, or it
had already turned into a collective noun, i.e. into an `-stem feminine
singular form, cf. PEÞ IV 226 f. The same should be said about Pr. (E)
slayo ‘sledge’, cf. PEÞ IV 126 f. (s.v. slayan) and bibliography 38 . In spite
even in separate dialects” (ibid. p. 178). However Common Indoeuropean was not any “standard
Latin” but a sum of related dialects. The same is true for Common Baltic. Thus WBaltic
and EBaltic were independent dialects of late Indoeuropean (WBaltic shared some isoglosses
with Slavic and not shared them with EBaltic). Therefore, the “secondary cases”, including
the paradigmatic locative, were formed in EBaltic separately, as it has been showed in BS – cf.
e.g. “loc.” Pr. (bît)-ai /= Lith. *-ei in (nam)-ie. Rosinas, ibid. p. 178–180, applies B. Comrie’s
and S. Lauraghi’s rules of syncretism of cases to an epoch when cases were on the initial stage
of formation. – L.P.
38 In spite of predicative neutral adjectives (used adverbially) and neuter-gender pronouns,
there is no grammatical neuter gender in Eastern Baltic. The presence of this gender in Prussian
(as well as orientation toward traditional comparative studies) led to a wide-spread opinion that
the neuter gender vanished in EBaltic. Nevertheless, one finds no plural neuter forms in
Prussian. A hypothesis (PEÞ l. c.) that a-stem neuter plural forms first were re-interpreted as
singular forms of abstract `-stem substantives but later turned into collective nouns, does not
convince. The development of plural originates in grammaticalizing forms of nouns with a
collective meaning (cf. Palmaitis BGR 97–99 and especially 235–237 about absence of
number in the 3rd “person” of Baltic verb as an implication of the absence of neuter gender).
It is difficult to image a “degrammaticalization” of one case of a paradigm into some lexical
meaning. – L.P.
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