Proceedings of the Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference

In this paper I provide a comprehensive analysis of the 51 instances I have found of the future passive imperative in Latin, offering new suggestions about the chronology of the creation of the three different 2nd/3rd singular endings, -tō, -minō, and -tor, and their usage. The data suggest that -minō is the most archaic ending attested for the 2nd/3rd sg. future passive imperative. I argue that the preserved instances of passive use of the ending -tō represent a more recent development rather than deriving directly from the situation reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. In Latin, this use seems instead to be a transfer of the active ending onto deponents via common verbs. Further, the lack of transparency of the ending -minō has several consequences for this verbal category in Latin, such as the creation of a more clearly marked passive ending -tor. I consider also whether the situation in Latin reflects a paradigmatic gap.