La forma pasiva de *Zitzan + U > Zituen

Abstract

An attempt is made at providing evidence of the role of the primitive past of Izan in the formation of the transitive auxiliary *Edun in passive form: *zitzan + u > zituen. Evidence is given to suggest that the zit- of zituen is the third-person plural object and that in this case the agent subject, also third person, is elided, thereby making it a passive form, as occurs with the present ditu. Likewise, an explanation is given as to why the primitive inflections of the past, like those of the present, appeared via suffixes and in the passive and why they then became prefixes and in the active.