The Balto‐Slavic ā ‐aorist

The paper presents a new theory of the origin of the Balto‐Slavic ā ‐aorist. It is argued that the conjunct evidence of Baltic and Slavic allows us to reconstruct a clear picture of the position of the ā ‐aorist in the Balto‐Slavic verb system: the Balto‐Slavic aorist suffix *‐ ā ‐ was non‐acute (thus pointing to an original form *‐ ah 2 ‐e/o ‐ > Bl.‐Sl. *‐ ā ‐), triggered zero grade of the root, and was exclusively found beside primary thematic and i̯e/o ‐presents. As indicated by a new analysis of the Slavic data, the ā ‐aorist was exclusively used to make aorists from PIE present roots. In spite of frequent claims to the contrary, the Balto‐Slavic ā ‐aorist has no obvious cognates elsewhere in the family and is thus likely to be an innovation of this branch. The most obvious clue within Balto‐Slavic itself is the formal identity of Baltic ā ‐preterits and ā ‐presents. Some recent refinements in our understanding of the Indo‐European ah 2 ‐presents and their development in Balto‐Slavic (where they were specialized as a deverbative formation with iterative value) allow us to postulate that the Balto‐Slavic ā ‐aorist goes back to the imperfect of a Balto‐Slavic ā ‐iterative.