Lucie Pultrová

The Latin Adjectives of Action

The study brings a survey of Latin deverbative adjectives generally called “adjectives of action” whereto I include both the real verbal adjectives (participles), and so called non-actual adjectives of action, which characterize the substance by describing its relation to an action as an attribute more or less stable, i.e. not defined in time. Within the interpretation of the origin of the adjectives in -ndus (other than gerundives), -bundus and -cundus a hypothesis is submitted according to which these adjectives may be derived directly from PIE medial participles with the suffix *-mno-. A new hypothesis, or rather a modification of an old Martinet’s theory is pronounced also in the case of the adjectives in -āx: same as Martinet, I consider the velar element of the suffix to be a hardened original laryngeal *h₂; according to the new theory the hardening of the laryngeal does not occur during the contact with the consonant s in the nominative of singular, but in the intervocalic position in the other cases of the paradigm.