HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF OLD PRUSSIAN

HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF OLD PRUSSIAN
I should like to derive the morph Pr. -mans = Pr. -m‹ans from
WBalt. *-m`ns, and I regard the latter to be an unaccented variant of
accented Balt. *-m#ôns < (accented / unaccented) Balt. *-m#ôns. It was its
unaccented variant *-m`ns (> Pr. -mans) which was generalized in West-
Baltic dialects, however in East-Baltic dialects the accented variant was
generalized, i.e. *-m#ôns > EBalt. *-m#ôs > Lith. -mus (= Latv. *-mus) – cf.
what has been said about the origin of acc. pl. masc. Lith.-Latv. -us and
Pr. -ans (* 100).
Similarly, it was a dual inflection (accented / unaccented) Balt. dat.
*-m#ô which manifested in 2 variants as (an accented) Balt. *-m#ô and as
(an unaccented) Balt. *-m` > Pr. -m‹a in its turn. The dual number
vanishing in some later epoch, this Pr. -m‹a was pluralized according to
the pattern dat. pl. *-m‹ans, i.e it was supplemented with final -s as mark
of the plural. In this way dat. pl. Pr. (III) -mas (in pronouns only!) came
into being beside older -mans (I, II, III).
This is the explanation (cf. also Maþiulis Baltistica II 43–52, BS
209 ff., Palmaitis Baltistica XII 161) to which Rosinas BÁM 45 consented
in principle. Nevertheless it is difficult to believe his reconstruction
Balt. dat. pl. *-môs, not *-môns. Cf. also * 166.
`-stems
* 104. Nom. sg. (fem.) The single spelling of this inflection in
(E) is -o (cf. galwo ‘head’, gerto ‘hen’, mergo ‘maiden’). It reflects Pr. (E)
*-¯É = (conventionally) *-` < Pr. *-` (= *-¯É), which turned into Pr. (Cat.)
-û (cf. mergu III, widdewû III ‘widow’) after the labials and gutturals, but
42 It was the quality Pr. *¯É which enabled its transition into *û after the labials and gutturals (*`
could not turn into *û directly). This is confirmed by data of first German record of Samlandian
toponyms in which o (= *¯É) is attested on place of Cat. ` just as in (E), cf. top. Byoten and bi`twei
(III), Bûga III 106. Beside the transition *¯É > û (after L, G), a transition *ç > î is attested in (II, III).
First records of Samlandian toponyms come from the 13th c., but many were recorded later, cf.
Krome 1463, Gerullis ON 73, or Sapoten 1402/ Seppothenn 1494, ibid. 151. This means that *¯É
still had not turmed into ` in 1463 (82 years before I, II), but in 1494 (51 years before I, II) even had
not turned into û after p. A question arises whether in course of 51 years *¯É had time to turn into
û after L, G, but afterwards (*¯É) had time to turn into ` in other positions? In 1545 (II) *ç had
already turned into î, but this means that the transition of *¯É into ` “downwards from above” had
to run almost symultaneously to an opposite transition *ç > î “upwards from below”! Since
therefore the transition *¯É > ` in one of the mostly archaic Baltic languages (which are very
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