Abstrakt
The article addresses the general question of how to define the phenomenon of suppletion. The thesis that what should be regarded as suppletive in the broad sense are semantically maximally regular forms whose formal relation is irregular and unique for the given domain is problematised by drawing attention to the Latin perfect passive participles (PPPs) in -tus.
This is an exceptional example of a grammatical form with absolutely clear and basic function, which at the same time is not formally uniform: a large majority of PPPs are formed regularly in relation to the corresponding active perfect stem, but a minority of verbs (many constituting the core vocabulary) have forms of PPPs that are neither predictable nor easily derivable from the perfective or imperfective stems or any other verbal form. Twenty-five pairs of Latin active perfects and PPPs are identified whose formal relation is unique.
The testimony of ancient Latin grammarians is investigated to determine whether they also perceived these PPPs as suppletive, or at least irregular.