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This article discusses the morphological and phonological structure of derived imperfectives in Polish. It is concerned primarily with the class of -aj imperfectives with the exclusion of the so-called nasal-vowel stems. It has been argued that the addition of the imperfectivizing suffix -aj to the verb induces the tensing of the vowel in the immediately preceding syllable. It is pointed out that moving Derived Imperfective Tensing (DIT) from the cyclic rule component to the morphological component does not do any damage to the system of cyclic rules. DIT was listed among cyclic rules because it has the blocking effect on Lower, which is cyclic.