*-þaz

From pre-Germanic *-to-s, a root-accented realization of the Proto-Indo-European verbal-adjective suffix *-tó-s. The inherited formation was normally added to the zero grade of verbal roots and formed resultative, stative, passive, or other characterizing adjectives; it was only secondarily incorporated into verbal paradigms as a past/passive participle. Cognate formations include Sanskrit श्रुत (śrutá), Ancient Greek κλυτός (klutós), Latin -tus as in status , and Proto-Slavic *-tъ (Fulk 2018: 252–53; Ringe 2017: 186–91).

The specific form *-þaz presupposes that the accent stood on the preceding root syllable before Verner’s law. Where the inherited suffix accent of *-tó-s was retained, the dental underwent Verner’s law, producing the related voiced variant *-daz. Why some formations had root accent is uncertain. The most plausible explanation is an early morphological differentiation between participial and non-participial uses: *-tó- formations used as lexical adjectives acquired root accent, whereas productive participles preserved suffix accent. Fulk (2018: 293), following Prokosch, compares Sanskrit रिक्त (riktá), an adjective with root accent, beside रिक्त (riktá), a participle with suffix accent. Proto-Germanic may have inherited such an accentual contrast or recreated it when old participial formations became lexicalized adjectives; in either case, the retraction must predate Verner’s law and cannot simply reflect the later general fixation of PGmc accent on the initial syllable. The root-accented dental may subsequently have spread analogically to some preterite-present and irregular weak formations, although the PGmc weak dental marker as a whole probably has more than one historical source (Fulk 2018: 292–94).