9. Jun 2026
Miguel Villanueva Svensson
Vilniaus Universitetas
A neglected Baltic feature - deverbal verb derivation
Abstract: Baltic inherited from Balto-Slavic a complex system of deverbal derivation encompassing productive classes of causatives, iteratives, anticausative-inchoatives and, perhaps, statives. In an Indo-European perspective the system is largely unremarkable. What is remarkable (and, therefore, in need of a historical explanation) is what happened after the breakup of Balto-Slavic. Slavic, like Germanic and Romance, tended to eliminate deverbal verb derivation altogether (except for derivation with prefixes). If inherited formations remained productive, it was only as part of a new system of grammatical aspect. By contrast, in Baltic deverbal verb derivation was not just preserved, but actually reinforced. All Balto-Slavic types remained productive, but, in addition, new types were added (‘diminutives’, ‘intensives’, etc.). Secondary contamination between suffixes was widespread, and most suffixes have expressive variants. Perhaps most surprising, the major Balto-Slavic suffixes (ē-verbs and ī-verbs) split into several formations. Thus, corresponding to the unitary class of Slavic ē-verbs we do not only have a richer system of primary verbs (Lith. budė́ti, bùdi ‘be awake’, tekė́ti, tẽka ‘run, flow’, gélbėti, ‑mi ‘save’), but also derived classes like duratives (stéipėti, ‑ėja ‘lie dying’ ← stìpti ‘die’), intensives (svérdėti, -i ‘stagger’ ← svìrti ‘bend down’), or diminutives (pa-ėjė́ti, ‑ė̃ji/-ėjė́ja ‘go a little’ ← eĩti ‘go’), in addition to extended suffixes like -alėti, -elėti, -erėti; -tel(ė)ti, -ter(ė)ti, -inėti, -sėti. The case of the ī-verbs was even more complicated.
This rich derivational system is in decline in Lithuanian and Latvian. Thus, the impression one gets is that the system of deverbal verb derivation experienced a period of expansion in Proto-Baltic. In this presentation I will present the main features of the Baltic system. I will also discuss what may have triggered the peculiar development of this branch, and what it implies for the reconstruction of the Indo-European verb.