South Oscan κλοπουστ (with an Appendix on [Osco-?]Lat. bvrvs)

The Oscan 3sg. fut. perf. verb form κλοπουστ, on a bronze tablet discovered in 1999, has a clear meaning ‘s/he will have stolen’ and transparent etymology (cf. Lat. clepō, Gk. κλέπτω ‘steal’ < PIE *klep-). While the suffix formation in -us- is regular, the form is striking for its anomalous o-grade root vocalism, unexpected in what looks like an unreduplicated perfect. Two previous solutions have been proposed, one suggesting a background in a PIE root aorist, and the other assuming a dereduplicated primary perfect (allegedly comparable, morphologically, to a difficult form bvrvs in a Latin inscription). Detailed critiques of these proposals will be provided, as both are problematic. The paper then offers a new solution, according to which κλοπουστ is a denominative based on nominal *klop- (thereby readily accounting for the root o-grade)—but not of the usual denominative type: rather, this would belong to the somewhat rare (but securely documented) Sabellic category of ā-verb denominatives with truncated stem vowel and suffixless stems in the perfect; cf. Osc. 3sg. perf. úpsed ‘s/he built, made’ beside present stem opsā- (Osc. gerund úpsannúm, Pael. impf. subj. upsaseter) or Umb. 3sg. fut. perf. portust ‘portaverit’ beside present stem portā- (impv. portatu, subj. portaia). In this way, Osc. κλοπουστ receives an attractive explanation and contributes an additional member to this interesting class of Sabellic perfects. An Appendix assesses the Latin (or possibly ‘Osco-Latin’) inscriptional form bvrvs.