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DICTIONARY OF REVIVED PRUSSIAN:

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III, fem. Antr` Maddla III, neutr. pronom., adj., subst. stae neuwenen Testamenten<br />

II), Number (cf. sg. pron. (adj.), subst. twais malnijks III, pl. adj., subst. tickrai<br />

malnijkai III, sg. pron., verb. as madli III, pl. Mes madlimai III), Case (cf. nom.<br />

(sg.) num., subst. ains Waix III, dat. (pl.) pron., subst. Steimans Waikammans III),<br />

Degree of Comparison (cf. positive adj. Vrs, adv. arwiskai III, comp. adj.<br />

vraisins, superl. adv. ucka isarwiskai III), Person (cf. 3 pers. pron., verb. [k`igi]<br />

t`ns [...] giwa, 2 pers. sg. pron., verb. tou [...kuilgimai] giwassi, 1 pers. pl. pron.,<br />

verb. mes [...] giwammai III), Tense (cf. praes. verb. pers. d`st, praet. dai III, fut.<br />

d`ts wirst), Voice (cf. act. prowela(din) I, II, pass. prawilts post`i III), Mood (cf.<br />

ind. ast, opt. seisei, boûsei III, conj. boûlai III, imp. seîti III, relat. praes. astits,<br />

poquoitçts III, praet. ymmits I, lymuczt II). The category of the relative mood<br />

(presented also in Lithuanian and in Latvian) has been postulated by myself after<br />

analyzing the usage of the forms in -ts and shortcomings in their traditional<br />

explanations 11 . Reflexivity is not regarded to be a morphological category.<br />

Nevertheless, it is worth to mention that in Old Prussian the same types of the reflexives<br />

are attested as in Lithuanian, even the transitive reflexives (cf. Erains mukinsusin<br />

[mukinsei sin] swaian mukinsnan ‘Let everybody learn own lesson’ III). As for<br />

Aspect, no grammatical means to express perfectivity / imperfectivity are apparent,<br />

nevertheless there are means (the verbal prefixes and the vowel gradation) which are<br />

consistently used to differentiate terminativity, iterativity, continuity etc.<br />

Scholars who have gone the way of “Lithuanizing” Prussian material do not<br />

want to acknowledge the evidence for four cases in Old Prussian. To them this<br />

seems to be a result of spoiling the language “by the Germans” who (this might be<br />

Abel Will only) purported to translated Luther’s Enchiridion literally (although there<br />

are sufficiently instances of deviation of the translated text from the German original).<br />

The kernel of the discussion is always two instances of the “instrumental” case: the<br />

phrase sen wissans swaieis ‘with all his (people)’ III (as if with the Lithuanian ending<br />

instr. pl. masc. -ais) and a pronominal form 1 pers. dat. m`im (2x), maim (1x) (a<br />

dash over the letter ‘a’ is interpreted as a sign of the omitted ‘n’ (Lith. instr. manim).<br />

As for swaieis, with all probability this is a simple misprint for the usual spelling<br />

acc. swaiens. As for the form m`im, it is highly improbable that the omission of the<br />

latter ‘n’, a typical paper-saving device in manuscripts, occurred in this printed text<br />

even 3 times in the same word. The reconstruction of the stem man- is excluded<br />

because of the well attested stem dat. mennei (9x) having the archaic -e- in Prussian<br />

11 Cf. Baltistica 25 (1989), 2, 126–133.<br />

14

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