DICTIONARY OF REVIVED PRUSSIAN:

occasionally appeared due to contamination of the nom. *-kû < *-k w ` (long) and the
gen. -kas, dat. -kai, acc. -kan (short, i.e. shortened already in a pre-historical epoch).
In Samlandian all inga-stem adjectives had to turn into ingja-stem adjectives
very early (cf even neuter-form adverbs as e.g. poklûsmingi III 93 etc.).
Samlandian l is treated as palatal, but since all palatal-stem accusatives have
been generalized as -in, the -l`-stem accusative is always -lin in New Prussian, cf.
nom. bil` vs. acc. billin ‘language’.
10. Euphonic changes in the nominative singular
The Samlandian of the Catechisms (Cat.) differs from the Pomezanian of the Elbing
Vocabulary (E) in further shortening of the nominative singular of the a-stems. This
form ends in -is (or in -s) in E, but it ends in -s in C. E -is comes from *-as and is
equal to a reduced - u s, - i s, - e s < -as in Lithuanian Panevezys sub-dialects, while -s of
the Catechisms is the same as in Samogithian dialects or in Latvian. Nevertheless, istem
nominatives show that there was NO reduction of vowels in Pomezanian! This
mystery points to some morphophonetic processes that changed some pre-historical
“active” linguistic structure into historical accusative structure, when the nominative
(Balt. *-(a)s) and the genitive (Balt. *-(a)s) cases of the agent appeared on the basis
of a former split in the common “active” case (Balt., Hittite *-(a)s).
In all Indo-European dialects, the masculine gender nouns of the consonant
stem (athematic declension) have a (“thematized”) sigmatic genitive form in the
singular; that is, they possess the same formant -s, which marks their (athematic)
nominative (cf. Gk. gen. sg. halƒos vs. nom. sg. hals “salt” 13 ). Therefore, in case of
the a-stems, the coincidence of the nominative and the genitive forms in the singular,
both ending in *-(a)s, is expected. This was the instance in Hittite, as well as probably
in Proto-Baltic. West-Baltic (Prussian) reflects this archaism in the genitive singular
as a feature of Peripheral Baltic-Slavic. As for East-Baltic (further Lithguanian and
Latvian), or, more precisely, Central Baltic-Slavis, the said coincidence was eliminated
there by replacing the gen. sg. *-as with the lengthened stem-ending (Maþiulis,
Kazlauskas) *-ô 14 . Later, this coincidence was also eliminated in West Baltic (E,
Cat.) by reducing the nominative *-as. Possibly Samlandian *-s comes from West-
Baltic *- V s due to further pure phonetic reduction. As a result, the pre-historical *-as
appears to be euphonically “restored” in positions which were difficult to pronounce
– e.g. nom. sg. aj *-isks (Baltic *-iskas) > -iskas. Other positions show that the
13 Palmaitis L. Baltø kalbø gramatinës sistemos raida. Kaunas: Ðviesa 1998, p. 40 t., 55, 78.
14 Maþiulis V. BS, * 55.
16