The Slavic aorist ending in -tz and the old prussian preterit in -ts

Abstract

The Slavic 2nd/3rd sg. aorist in-t'b, e.g., pi-tb 'clrank', po-vi-tb 'wrapped', u-mretb 'died', za-čt;-tb 'began', ras-p<;-tD 'crucified', vb-Zt;-tb 'took', pro-stre-tb 'stretched', -žre-tb 'swallowed', vI>s-pe-tb 'started to sing', klt;-tb 'swore', etc. have long been a subject of dispute. Some have thought that these forms were derived by the addition of a personal pronoun tb. Then since 2nd and 3rd sg. aor. forms vede 'led', bT:Jra 'took', vide 'saw' were the same the tb was substituted back into the 2nd person also (Stang, 1942, 219). Van Wijk, 1926, 281, noted that the ending-tb was characteristic of verbs with an original circumflex accentuation and that the same verbs had past passive participles in -tb also. Roots with an original acute accentuation lacked the aorist ending-tD and had the past passive participle formation in-en-. Stang, 1942, 65, wrote that he believed that the verbs with the -tD aorist ending were old root aorist forms (or imperf ects from root presents). The only problem with this would seem to be the expectation that the lndo-European root aorist ended in *-t which should be lost in word-final position as a result of the action of 'the law of open syllables'.