Proto-Germanic grammar

Proto-Germanic had six cases,^[1] three genders, two numbers (relics of dual survive in verbs and in some number words like 'two' or 'both'), three moods (indicative, subjunctive (PIE optative), imperative), and two voices (active and passive (PIE middle)). This is quite similar to the state of Latin, Greek, and Middle Indo-Aryan languages of c. 200 BCE. It is often asserted that the Germanic languages have a highly reduced system of inflections as compared with Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit. However, some parts of the inflectional systems of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit were innovations that were not present in Proto-Indo-European.

Furthermore, it is probably due more to the late time of attestation of Germanic than to any inherent "simplicity" of the Germanic languages. As an example, there are fewer than 500 years between the Gothic Gospels of 360 CE (see Ulfilas) and the Old High German Tatian of 830 CE, yet Old High German, despite being the most archaic of the West Germanic languages, is missing a large number of archaic features present in Gothic, including dual and passive markings on verbs, reduplication in Class VII strong verb past tenses, the vocative case, and second-position (Wackernagel's Law) clitics. Many more archaic features may have been lost between the Proto-Germanic of 200 BCE or so and the attested Gothic language.

Furthermore, Proto-Romance and Middle Indo-Aryan of the fourth century CE – contemporaneous with Gothic – had significantly less inflexional complexity than Latin and Sanskrit, respectively, and overall features probably no more archaic than Gothic. At the same time, Middle Persian inflection had already been simplified to a stage perhaps comparable with modern Dutch.

The system of nominal declensions was largely inherited from PIE. Six cases were preserved: vocative, nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, genitive.^[1] The instrumental and vocative can be reconstructed only in the singular. The instrumental survives only in the West Germanic languages, and the vocative only in Gothic. The locative case had merged into the dative case, and the ablative may have merged with either the genitive, dative or instrumental cases. However, sparse remnants of the earlier locative and ablative cases are visible in a few pronominal and adverbial forms, and in some instances the case forms of certain noun classes use the older locative ending for the dative.

The older distinction between athematic and thematic stems had been lost, and generally nouns were divided into several declension classes based on the vowels or consonants before the case endings. Globally, there were vowel stems (a-, ō-, i- and u-stems) and consonant stems (n-, r- and z-stems and stems ending in other consonants). Usually, only nouns ending in consonants other than n, r or z are called consonant stems in the context of Proto-Germanic nouns. The neuter nouns of all classes differed from the masculines and feminines in their nominative and accusative endings, which were alike.

The a-stems descended from the PIE thematic inflection and were by far the most common type of noun in Proto-Germanic.^[2] Although they could originally be any gender in PIE (as could be seen in Latin), in Proto-Germanic they were restricted to either masculine (ending in -az) or neuter (ending in -ą). The two genders differed only in the nominative, vocative and accusative cases; the other three cases were identical for both. There were two smaller subgroups within the a-stems, ja-stems, and wa-stems. These were declined the same as regular a-stems, but with a suffix -(i)j- or -w- before the ending. It was only in the daughter languages that the wa- and (especially) ja-stems began to diverge significantly from the regular a-stems.

The Proto-Indo-European genitive & dative singular endings *-osyo and *-oey, alongside the instrumental plural -ōys have the reconstructed results of *-as/-is, -ai, and *-amiz instead of the more expected **-az (same as the nominative singular *-az) and **-ōj (compare the nominative plural *-ōz from -oes) and -**ōiz. The reason for this is unclear, but some theories have been put forward as to why.

The irregular genitive could be use of a stressed and/or e-grade variant (**-ósyo or **-ésyo), which would give *-as or *-is instead of a more expected *-az or hypothetical *-iz (from **-esyo) after the loss of world final *-a -o -e -ya -yo -ye -wa -wo -we, as *-s would remain voiceless due to the accent falling on the suffix and not the root word. The best explanation for this irregular stressed variant being used for the genitive was probably the speakers of Germanic wanting to keep the nominative/genitive opposition intact in some form, finding it a useful distinction to make in speech.

The i-stem dative singular *-eyes and instrumental plural *-imis probably influenced the development of the a-stem endings too, giving Early Pre-Germanic **-oye and **-omis, which would give *-ai, and *-amiz after regular *a o > a merging, unstressed raising of *e to i, Verner's law and loss of intervocalic *-y-. The exact reason for these specific endings to be irregularly changed in analogy with the i-stem forms is unknown.

For the nominative and vocative plural, the northern West Germanic languages attest a voiceless *-s in the ending also. The origin of this is not clear.^[3]

The ō-stems descended from the thematic eh₂-stems in PIE,^[4] but there were also examples that descended from originally neuter collective nouns that were reinterpreted as feminine singulars. They were the feminine equivalent of the a-stems and were the most common type of feminine noun, with a nominative singular ending in -ō. There were also jō-stems and wō-stems, declined identically to the regular ō-stems but with a suffix before the ending.^[5]

The ī/jō-stems descended from athematic/ablauting nouns in *-ih₂/yéh₂-. In Proto-Germanic, they had almost fallen together with the jō-stems, except that they had a nominative/vocative singular form in -ī rather than -jō. They did not survive as a distinct class in any language except possibly Gothic.

The i-stems descended from PIE nouns in -is, many of which were feminine abstract nouns in -tis. They were reasonably common and appeared in all three genders, although neuter i-stems were very rare with only a handful of reconstructible examples. The masculine and feminine i-stems were declined the same, with a nominative singular in -iz. The neuters ended in -i. ^[6]

The u-stems descended from PIE nouns in -us, many of which were masculine nouns in -tus. They were formally parallel to the i-stems, but because of sound changes they had become a distinct class. They were less common than the i-stems overall and appeared in all three genders, although neuter u-stems were likewise very rare. The masculine and feminine u-stems were declined the same, with a nominative singular in -uz. The neuters ended in -u, but since there are no neuter plurals attested, their plural inflection can only be guessed. ^[7]

The an-stems were a common group of noun, descended from various kinds of PIE n-stem, all of which were athematic. They were either masculine or neuter, although neuters were rare. Their nominative singular forms ended in -ô. There were also jan-stems and wan-stems, which were declined mostly as regular an-stems. The an-stems correspond with Latin 3rd declension nouns such as homō (gen. hominis) "man" and nomen (gen. nominis) "name". They are also the source of many modern German weak nouns.

The masculine nominative singular ending cannot be reconstructed with confidence, as both North and East Germanic reflect a rather different ending. Old Norse -i and Gothic -a can conceivably come from an ending *-ē, but the source of such an ending is unknown. Kroonen also disputes the genitive singular ending, having the ending terminate in -az instead of -iz;^[8] for the sake of relevance, the -az genitive ending termination will be used in discussing declensions of zero-grade–ablauting an-stems in this article.

Some nouns, such as *namô "name", preserved an alternate ablaut pattern, with the suffix in the zero grade in some forms.

Under the controversial Kluge's Law, a paradigmatic n in an an-stem immediately succeeding a stop consonant may fuse to create a geminate stop, in the same context as Verner's Law, seen most prominently in the genitive singular. The dative singular of ablauting an-stems would also be affected by Verner's law itself, causing the voicing of an originally voiceless root-final consonant. This voiceless geminate may then be reduced to a single voiceless stop after a heavy syllable. Furthermore, some an-stems contained root ablaut across their paradigms. All these morphophonological alternations would create multiple stems for a single noun's declension paradigm. The descendants of these ablauting an-stems in the daughter languages were derived from one morpohonological alternant generalized across a paradigm; paradigmatically leveled derivatives would be generally derived from the nominative singular stem, genitive singular stem, dative singular stem, accusative plural stem, or some chimera of these.^[8]

Kroonen reconstructs the following masculine an-stems incorporating Kluge's Law (of which he is an ardent supporter) and usually assuming the amphikinetic accent pattern.^[8]

One zero-grade–ablauting an-stem in particular, *hrīmô ("hoarfrost"), would thus gain a uniquely irregular declension of its own, due to a combination of Kluge's law alternations, post–heavy-syllable geminate shortening, and the loss of an original root-final f in several forms, such as the nominative singular. This left the word with a nominative singular of *hrīmô and a genitive singular of *hrīpaz.^[8]

The ōn-stems were an innovated formation, created by attaching n-stem endings to older feminines in -ō. They were likewise always feminine, and acted as the feminine counterpart of the an-stems. They probably ended in -ǭ, but that is not certain.^{[further explanation needed]} There were also jōn-stems and wōn-stems, declined identical to regular ōn-stems.

Kroonen additionally reconstructs a single root-ablauting ōn-stem noun, *bijǭ ("bee") (which he reconstructs as *bīō in his published work), which he states to have an oblique stem in *bin-.^[8]

This group of nouns contained only a single type of abstract noun, formed by attaching an īn-suffix to adjectives. They were always feminine, and were essentially identical to ōn-stems, with ī replacing ō in all the forms. The nominative singular ended presumably in -į̄.

The r-stem inflection type was limited to just 7 words. Their inflection was somewhat unusual, but generally resembled other consonant stem nouns.^[9] 6 of them were close kinship terms, *fadēr ‘father’, *mōdēr ‘mother’, *brōþēr ‘brother’, *swestēr ‘sister’, *duhtēr ‘daughter’ and *þeuhtēr ‘descendant, grandson’. The only word non-kinship related word to use this inflection was *aihtēr ‘owner, possessor’, from *aiganą 'to own, to possess', which was borrowed into Proto-Samic as *ājttrë, and also took on the additional meaning of ‘caretaker’ as well. Whilst the first 5 terms were preserved almost universally in modern Germanic languages (albeit being reassigned new inflection types by the middle of the millennium in all) the terms *þeuhtēr (attested in Middle High German tiehter, diehter) and *aihtēr (only attested in the Old Swedish compound iorþattari ‘landowner’) fell into obsolescence early on.

The z-stems descended from PIE acrostatic neuters in -os/es-. They were fairly rare and always neuter. They were formed similarly to an-stems, but with z replacing n. Their nominative singular forms ended in -az.^[11]

Nouns in this group are usually just called 'consonant stems'. It was mostly a class of remnants, consisting of PIE root nouns (nouns with no suffix) and nouns with a suffix ending in a consonant other than n, r or z. There are few reconstructible neuters; those that can be reconstructed were irregular. It is possible that many reconstructible a-stem neuters originally belonged to this class, however.

The nominative singular cannot be reliably reconstructed. Purely etymologically, *-s would be expected, or perhaps *-z after a voiced consonant. However, it is likely that the final consonant cluster would have undergone simplification, as it did in other Indo-European languages such as Latin. This is not attested in any Germanic language, so this remains speculative. ^[12]

There were several irregular nouns in this class. The most prominent are *tanþs ‘tooth’ and *wrōts ‘root’, which preserved ablaut and Verner alternation in the root.^[13] The noun *mili ‘honey’, one of the few reconstructible neuters, had lost its stem-final -t but kept it as -d- in the oblique cases.^[14] The nominative singular of the noun *mann- ‘human, man’ has so far not been conclusively reconstructed.

Adjectives, determiners and pronouns agreed with the noun they qualified in case, number, and gender, although without a separate vocative form. Their inflection stemmed from the PIE "pronominal inflection", which is used most prominently by the demonstrative pronoun in other Indo-European languages. Like the nouns, they had various declension classes, but the classes were less distinct. Globally, a distinction can be made between a/ō-stems (the vast majority), ja/jō-, i-, and u-stems (which were declined almost identically) and n-stem or "weak" adjectives.

A unique feature of Germanic adjectives was the distinction between strong and weak declensions, originally with indefinite and definite meaning, respectively. As a result of its definite meaning, the weak form came to be used in the daughter languages in conjunction with demonstratives and definite articles. This traditional account of the development and functioning of the dual adjective inflection system is largely assumption based. The evidence of variation in Gothic suggests that weak forms of adjectives can also be indefinite.^[15] This, in turn, suggests that the traditional account of the development of the Germanic strong vs. weak system of adjective inflection may be incorrect. The terms "strong" and "weak" are based on the later development of these declensions in languages such as German and Old English, where the strong declensions have more distinct endings. In the proto-language, as in Gothic, such terms have no relevance. The strong declension was the declension of the original adjective, with some significant pronominal admixture in the adjective inflection,^[16] while the weak declension was formed by replacing the adjective's own declension with n-stem endings identical to those of n-stem nouns.

These were by far the most common type of adjective, and even in the oldest languages (except Gothic) there was a tendency for all adjectives to be declined alike. The adjective *gōdaz "good" is given here as an example. ^[17]

Although these three classes were originally different, sound changes had made them largely identical in the feminine forms. Only the nominative singular differed: it was -jō for the ja/jō-stems, but -ī for the i- and u-stems. The masculine and neuter forms are uncertain, but may have been identical to the ja-stem adjectives already by analogy with the feminines (as they are in Gothic). Only the nominative singular forms remained distinct, the masculines ending in -jaz, -iz, -uz and the neuters in -ja, -i, -u.^[18]

The inflection of present participles in -nd- is likewise difficult to reconstruct. The feminines inflected as i- and u-stems, ending in -ī in the nominative singular but -jō- in the other forms. The masculines and neuters may have already acquired ja-stem endings, but it is certain that the nominative ended in -ndz or -nds.^[19]

This declension class was not a separate class of adjectives. Rather, adjectives could sometimes take this declension instead of their own strong declension. The weak declension was identical to the an-stem and ōn-stem declensions of nouns. Comparatives and ordinals used an alternative variety of the weak inflection, in which the feminine forms were not those of the ōn-stem nouns but of the īn-stems. ^[19]

Proto-Germanic had a demonstrative *sa ‘that, those’ which could serve as both a demonstrative determiner and a demonstrative pronoun. In daughter languages, it evolved into the definite article and various other demonstratives. ^[20]

Proto-Germanic possessed a general anaphoric pronoun *iz ‘he, she, it, etc.’ that was used as a third-person personal pronoun. It was inflected as follows:^[21]

The interrogative pronoun *hwaz ‘who, what’ was inflected likewise, but without plural forms. The feminine forms were probably rarely used, only if the person or thing being asked about was known to be feminine.^[22]

There were several other pronouns and determiners in use, such as *jainaz ‘yon, that over there’, *aljaz ‘other’ and *allaz ‘all’. These were declined as strong adjectives, usually with no weak form. The proximal demonstrative *hiz ‘this’ was inflected as *iz. Neither pronoun survived in Old Norse, both survive in Gothic, and the two were eventually conflated in West Germanic, with the northern languages using the forms with h- (as English he) and the southern languages those without (German er). The Old Norse formation of the masculine and feminine singular pronouns is not fully understood, but appears to go back to a form *hanaz.

The inflection of the first- and second-person pronouns was very different from any other kind of nominal, with case forms that did not match those of other nominals. As in Proto-Indo-European, the case system was markedly reduced - only four cases were distinguished. The dative and instrumental were identical, and the nominative was used as a vocative as well. The paradigms were suppletive, with different roots for the singular and dual/plural, and also with different roots for the nominative and non-nominative.

Unique within Germanic was that the pronouns of the first and second person retained distinct dual forms, which referred specifically to two individuals. Verbs also retained distinct dual forms in the first and second person, which agreed with the pronouns. The dual was lost in other nominals, and therefore the third-person dual of verbs was lost as well since verb–subject agreement was no longer possible. Although the dual pronouns survived into all the oldest languages, the verbal dual survived only into Gothic, and the (presumed) nominal and adjectival dual forms were lost before the oldest records. As in the Italic languages, it may have been lost before Proto-Germanic became a different branch at all.

¹ – Unstressed variant

The genitive forms of the first and second person pronouns were inflected as strong adjectives, unlike other genitive forms which were uninflected.^[24]