Nouns The
noun of Proto-Baltic possessed very
archaic traits—the endings were not being shortened and were close to the endings of PIE. It had three grammatical categories:
gender (masculine, feminine and neuter),
number (singular,
dual and
plural) and seven cases:
nominative,
genitive,
dative,
accusative,
instrumental,
locative and
vocative with three different dual case forms. In comparison to the PIE reconstruction, Proto-Baltic only failed to retain the
ablative and
allative cases. Neuter gender was only retained by
Old Prussian while in
Latvian and
Lithuanian it ceased to exist. That said, other neuter forms of inflected words such as
adjectives,
participles,
pronouns and
numerals remained in Lithuanian.
*ā-stem and
*ē-stem nouns were feminine,
*o-stem nouns basically were masculine and neuter,
*s-stem nouns were neuter,
*r-stem nouns―masculine and feminine while other noun stems could refer to all three genders. Unlike feminine and masculine nouns, neuter ones always had the same form for the nominative, accusative, and vocative cases. This form distinguished neuter nouns from masculine and feminine ones belonging to the same stem. Masculine and feminine nouns of the same stem had identical endings, and the grammatical gender was indicated by gender-changing words (pronouns, adjectives, participles, etc.) used with nouns:
*labas anglis 'a good coal' (masculine),
*labā au̯is 'a good sheep' (feminine),
*laba(n) mari 'a good sea' (neuter). Because of the disappearance of the semivowel
*i̯ between a consonant and a front vowel, neuter
*i-stem words had changes
*mari̯ī >
*marī 'two seas',
*aru̯i̯ī >
*aru̯ī 'two suitable ones' in dual.
*o-stem nouns •
*deiṷas 'God' Pruss.
dēiwas, pre-Lith.
*dēvas and Lith.
dievas, Ltv.
dievs) •
*buta(n) 'house' Lith.
butà, rare synonym of
bùtas and
namas; Pruss.
buttan [=
butan])
*ā-stem nouns *rankā 'hand' Lith.
rankà, Ltv.
ròka, Pruss.
ranko [written as "rancko"]; cognate with the Lith. verb
riñkti)
*ē-stem nouns *žemē 'earth' Lith.
žẽmė, Ltv.
zeme, Pruss.
zemē [written as "semme"])
*i-stem nouns •
*anglis 'coal, charcoal' Lith.
anglìs, Pruss.
anglis, dialectal Ltv.
oglis) •
*au̯is 'sheep' Lith.
avis, Ltv.
avs) •
*mari 'sea' Old Lith.
mãrės)
*u-stem nouns •
*sūnus 'son' Old. Lith.
súnus, Ltv.
soūns) •
*girnus 'millstone' Lith.
girna, Ltv.
dzir̃nus and
dzir̃navas, Pruss.
girnoywis [wrong transcription of
*girnuvis]) •
*medu 'honey' Lith.
medùs, Ltv.
medus, Pruss.
meddo)
*r-stem nouns •
*brātē 'brother' dialectal Lith.
broti, Pruss.
brāti, Ltv.
brālis from a diminutive form) •
*duktē 'daughter' Old Lith.
duktė́, Pruss.
dukti [written as "duckti"])
*n-stem nouns •
*akmō 'stone'
Old. Lith. ãkmuo,
Ltv. akmens)'' •
*sēmen 'seed' Lith.
sėmuõ, Pruss.
semen)
*l-stem nouns *ābō 'apple-tree'
Lith. obelis,
Ltv. ābele,
Pruss. wobalne)
*s-stem nouns *nebas 'cloud'
Old Lith. dẽbesis [f.],
Ltv. debess [f.])
Root nouns •
*ṷaišpats 'lord' (>
Lith. viẽšpats or
viēšpats; cognate with
ancient Greek οῖκος [oikos] "settlement"
Old Lith. širdès,
Ltv. sir̂ds)
Adjectives Unlike the noun, the
adjective used to be alternated using a gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), which was then adapted to the corresponding gender of the noun. Adjectives had three
degrees: positive (no suffix: masculine
*labas, neuter
*laban, feminine
*labā 'good'), comparative (suffix
*-es-: masculine
*labesis, neuter
*labesi, feminine
*labesē 'better') and superlative (suffix
*-im-: masculine
*labimas, neuter
*labiman, feminine
*labimā 'the best'). They had singular,
dual and
plural numbers as they were applied to adjectives for combining them with nouns. The vocative case usually concurred with the nominative one. As in the case of noun
paradigms, there were
*i̯o- (fem.
*i̯ā-) and
*ii̯o- (fem.
*ē-) stem variants next to the
*o-stem adjectives. Feminine gender forms were constructed with the
*ā-stem while the feminine forms with the
*i̯ā-stem (sing. nom. *
-ī) were constructed with the
*u-stem adjectives. The feminine gender of the masculine and neuter genders for the
*i-stem probably resulted with
*i̯ā- or
*ē-stems. However, the reconstruction of the later is difficult as the
*i-stem adjectives in the current Baltic languages were poorly preserved.
*o-stem, *ā-stem adjectives *labas 'good'
Lith.
lãbas,
Latv.
labs,
Prus.
labs)
*u-stem, *i̯ā-stem adjectives *platus 'wide'
Lith.
platus,
Latv.
plats,
Prus.
plat-)
*i-stem, *ē-stem adjectives *aru̯is 'suitable'
Lith.
arvis or
arvas, then displaced by
tinkamas, linked to the verb
tikti; Prus.
arwis "true, correct", and
PS *orvьnъ
"straight, even" > Rus. ровный)
Verbs The reconstruction of the verb of Proto-Baltic is mostly based on the collected data on the East Baltic languages, as the verb system in
Old Prussian is poorly attested. The reconstructed verb system is attributed to the later stages of linguistic development. Unlike other parts of speech, the verb of Proto-Baltic experienced a lot of changes—the grammatical mood, tense and voice systems that came from PIE changed. For instance, from the former Proto-Indo-European tenses—the
present, the
aorist, the
perfect—only the present was preserved by Proto-Baltic in addition to the sigmatic
future, which by some researchers is considered to be an inheritance from late PIE. In PIE there were four moods:
indicative,
subjunctive,
optative and
imperative. In Proto-Baltic, indicative remained but subjunctive was changed by the newly formed
conditional mood. Meanwhile, imperative gained forms from optative. PIE also had two verb voices –
active and
middle. The latter was changed with
reflexive verbs in Proto-Baltic. New types of verb form (the analytical
perfect and the
pluperfect) and the analytical
passive voice were created. The most archaic trait of Proto-Baltic is the retained
athematic conjugation. In the first and second person forms, Proto-Baltic had preserved the three numbers from PIE (singular, dual and plural), while in third person, number was not distinguished. The verb of Proto-Baltic had three basic stems, i.e. the stems of the present tense, past tense and the
infinitive. All forms of the verb were based on those stems. For example, the stems of the verb 'to carry' were
*neša-, *nešē-, *neš-; the stems of the verb 'to sit' were
*sēdi-, *sēdējā-, *sēdē-. Compared to Lith.
nẽša 'he carries',
nẽšė 'he carried',
nèšti 'to carry';
sė́di 'he sits',
sėdė́jo 'he sat',
sėdė́ti 'to sit'.
Conjugation CH. Stang identifies the following conjugations of verbs in the present tense: athematic, thematic (
*o-stem verbs) and semi-thematic (
*i-stem and
*ā-stem verbs). The future tense was formed using the
*-s- / -*si- suffix attached to the infinitive stem, and because of the
*-si- suffix, all future tense verbs were conjugated with the
*i-stem. The past tense had
*ā- and
*ē-stems. With a few exceptions (1st sg.
conditional *rinkti̯ā 'I would gather'; 3rd imperative, the same in all numbers; 2nd sg.
imperative), all verb endings were borrowed from the present tense. The third person singular and plural of "to be" had two versions. The second version
*irā, which is in turn inherited from
Proto-Balto-Slavic *irā, is an innovation from an unclear source. Its modern reflexes include
Lithuanian "yrà" and
Latvian "ir"; both mean "(he) is".
Infinitive In Proto-Baltic the
infinitive was created with suffixes
*-tei, *-tēi, *-ti:
*eitei, *-tēi, *-ti 'go',
*darītei, *-tēi, *-ti 'do'. The infinitive comes from the singular nominal of the word stem
ti in its dative (
*mirtei 'for death') and locative (
*mirtēi 'in death'; consonant stem —
*darānti 'in doing' (active participle, masculine–neuter) form. In Lithuanian, the relationship between the infinitive and dative can sometimes be observed to this day (e.g.
kėdė yra sėdėti / sėdėjimui 'the chair is for sitting',
ne metas liūdėti / liūdėjimui 'no time for sadness').
Supine In Proto-Baltic the
supine was created with suffixes
*-tun < PIE
*-tum:
*eitun,
*darītun. This verb form is unconjugated and was used together with the verbs of movement to express the
adverbials of a purpose or an intention. The supine comes from the singular nominal of the word stem
tu in its
accusative form (
*leitun 'rain'). The connection can be observed in the existing dialects of the current Baltic languages and is considered to be inherited from PIE as the supine can be found in other Indo-European languages as well.
Aspect Aspect (e.g.
imperfective aspect 'I was gathering' vs.
perfective aspect 'I had gathered') might have been unusual to Proto-Baltic, as
aorist tense, which was used to express a perfective aspect of a process in contrast to the
present tense used to express the imperfective aspect, fell out of use.
Participle Proto-Baltic had
active and
passive voice
participles. Traditionally, it is believed that active voice participles already existed in PIE. Participles were
declined the same way as the
nominals. The vocative case probably coincided with the nominative one. The participle had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), numbers (singular,
dual,
plural) and tenses (
present,
future,
past). Active participles were used to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of their own doing while passive participles were meant to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of someone else taking action. Present participles of the verbs
*rinktei 'gather, collect',
*turētei 'have',
*laikītei 'hold': Future participles of the verbs
*būtei 'be',
*turētei 'have': Past participles of the verbs
*būtei 'be',
*turētei 'have',
*laikītei 'hold':
Pronouns The inflexions of PIE were already different significantly in comparison to
nominals. As in the case of PIE, the
demonstrative pronouns of Proto-Baltic could indicate three levels of varying distance from the speaker: close range
*šis and
*is, distant range
*anas, and unspecified range
*tas. The latter demonstrative pronoun, which had three grammatical genders, was the equivalent to the third-person. There were two
personal pronouns, they had no grammatical gender —
*ež (*eš) 'I' and
*tu / *tū 'you', which possessed
suppletive inflexion forms preserved from PIE. The
reflexive pronoun *seu̯e 'oneself' only had a singular form without the nominative as it does in the current Baltic languages. The singular forms of the pronoun
*seu̯e were also used with dual and plural objects, i.e. the singular also served as dual and plural. Dutch Professor
Frederik Kortlandt believed that only the oldest and non-renewed pronoun forms should be reconstructed in Proto-Baltic language while Lithuanian linguist-historian Professor
Zigmas Zinkevičius believed older pronoun forms only existed at the earliest stages of Proto-Baltic.
Personal pronouns ;
First person ;
Second person ;
Third person Demonstrative pronoun
*tas was the equivalent to the third person.
Reflexive pronoun Interrogative pronouns There were two
interrogative pronouns—masculine
*kat[a/e]ras, neuter
*kat[a/e]ra, feminine
*kat[a/e]rā, all meaning 'which', and masculine–feminine
*kas, neuter
*ka, meaning 'who, what'. The latter was used as a
relative pronoun in compound sentences. According to Zigmas Zinkevičius, relative pronouns had all three genders, and
Vytautas Mažiulis believed pronoun
*kas had the feminine form *
kā when it was used as a relative pronoun. Interrogative and relative pronouns were inflected the same way as the demonstrative pronoun
*tas. Indefinite pronouns Indefinite pronouns, such as masculine
*kitas, neuter
*kita, feminine
*kitā , meaning 'other', or masculine
*u̯isas, neuter
*u̯isa, feminine
*u̯isā, meaning 'all, entire, whole', were also inflected as the pronoun
*tas. Western Baltic pronouns masculine
*su̯ai̯as, neuter
*su̯ai̯a, feminine
*su̯ai̯ā 'oneself', Eastern Baltic ones masculine
*seu̯as, neuter
*seu̯a, feminine
*seu̯ā 'oneself' could be used with all persons. The equivalent of third person possessive pronoun was the genitive case of the demonstrative pronoun
*tas, which had three numbers and genders.
Numerals Cardinal numbers Cardinal number 6 has three different reflexes in the Balto-Slavic languages: one in Latvian and pre-Lithuanian, another one in
Old Prussian and a final one in
Proto-Slavic. Hence, number 6 in PBS had either two or three versions: one version with a reflex in Proto-Slavic and either one single version or two different versions with two reflexes in PB. The hypothetical form of number 6 in PBS with medial
*-w- is reconstructed by
Vytautas Mažiulis (2004).
Numerals in Proto-Baltic, except for 'two', had noun endings:
*ainas / *einas (PIE:
*h₁óynos) 'one' was inflected the same way as noun word stems
o (masculine and neuter) and
ā (feminine), this numeral had a singular, dual and plural number; masculine
*d(u)u̯ō (PIE:
*dwóh₁) and feminine-neuter
*d(u)u̯ai (PIE:
*dwóy(h₁)) 'two' was inflected as a demonstrative pronoun dual;
*trii̯es (masc. PIE:
*tréyes) 'three' was inflected as a plural noun with the word stem
i and was common for all genders; eventually,
*ketures (masc. PIE:
*kʷetwóres) 'four' was inflected as a plural noun with the consonant word stem
r and was also the same for all three genders. Proto-Baltic people applied the principles for
*ketures (PIE:
*kʷetwóres) 'four' inflexion to numerals
*penkes (PIE:
*pénkʷe) 'five',
*ušes / *sešes <
*su̯ešes (PIE:
*(s)wéḱs) 'six',
*septines (PIE:
*septḿ̥) 'seven',
*aštōnes (PIE:
*(h₁)oḱtṓw) 'eight' and
*neu̯ines (PIE:
*h₁néwn̥) 'nine'. In PIE, numerals from five to nine were not inflected. The early Proto-Baltic might have retained the uninflected numeral forms of
*su̯eš, The reconstruction of Latvian language indicates that
*septines 'seven' and
*neu̯ines 'nine' with the short
*i is plausible. The numeral 10,
*dešimts (PIE
*deḱmt- < *deḱṃ), was declined as the root noun and had all three numbers.
Ordinal numbers The masculine and neuter
ordinal numbers were inflected as nouns possessing word stem
o while feminine ones were inflected as nouns with word stem
ā. Ordinal number 6 has two reflexes in the Baltic Languages from PBS; these two reflexes could have come from either two different form in PBS or a single form; the hypothetical single form, with medial
*-w-, is reconstructed by
Vytautas Mažiulis (2004). Ordinal numbers from first to tenth in Proto-Baltic were as follows: ==Notes==