{blintes}, {nante}, {r[u]mte}. It also occasionally became {d} after {l},
as {halden} beside {halten}, _to hold_, {solde} beside {solte}, pret. of
{suln}, _shall_.

ACCIDENCE

CHAPTER III

DECLENSION OF NOUNS

Sec. 41.

MHG. nouns have two numbers: singular and plural; three genders:
masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in OHG. and NHG., from which the
gender of nouns in MHG. does not materially differ; four cases:
nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. Traces of an old locative
occur in what is called the uninflected dative singular of {h[u]s},
_house_, beside {h[u]se}, and in proper names like {Engellant} beside
{Engellande}. The vocative is like the nominative.

In MHG., as in the older periods of the other Germanic languages, nouns
are divided into two great classes, according as the stem originally
ended in a vowel or a consonant, cp. the similar division of nouns in
Latin and Greek. Nouns whose stems originally ended in a vowel belong to
the vocalic or so-called strong declension. Those whose stems originally
ended in {-n} belong to the so-called weak or {n-}declension. All other
consonantal stems are generally put together under the general heading,
'Minor Declensions'. In OHG. nouns whose stems originally ended in a
vowel are subdivided into the {a-}declension including pure {a-}stems,
{ja-}stems, and {wa-}stems; the {[o]-}declension including pure {[o]-}stems,
{j[o]-}stems, and {w[o]-}stems; the {[)i]-}declension, and the {u-}declension.
All the nouns belonging to the {u-}declension went over into other
declensions in MHG. (cp. Secs. 43, 44, 49). But as all final vowels either
disappeared (some of them already in OHG.) or were weakened to {e} in
MHG. (see Secs. 7, 8), it is no longer practicable to retain the OHG.
subdivision fully without entering into the oldest and in many cases
into the prehistoric period of the language, which would be quite out of
place in a MHG. grammar. The old 'Minor Declensions' had begun to pass
over into the vocalic, especially into the {i-} and {a-}, declensions in
the oldest OHG. The remnants of the old inflexions preserved in MHG.
will be noted in the following paragraphs. The neuter nouns whose stems
originally ended in {-os}, {-es} (cp. Sec. 47) are in this Primer included
in the strong declension.

A. THE VOCALIC OR STRONG DECLENSION.

1. {Masculine Nouns.}

Sec. 42.

{First declension.}--To this declension belong all masculine nouns which
form th