Re: [tied] nominative plural

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 13:02:18 -0700, Michael J Smith
<lookwhoscross-eyednow@...> wrote:

>
> is -ar Germanic nominative plural equivalent to Latin -i, thus Germanic
>Suevar, Cheruscar, etc.?

The Germanic o-stem nom. plural is attested as:

Gothic -o:s
OE -as
OS -os
ON -ar
OHG -a

The OHG form is an old accusative, the others seem to go back to Verner
variants *-o:z ~ *-o:s.

>And how would names ending in -ones have been
>said in Germanic, as in Semnones, Gotones, etc.?

*-ones would have given Gmc. *-anz = Goth. -ans, OE -an. Old Saxon and OHG
have -on/-un (< *-n.-) from the oblique cases (e.g. Dat pl. *-n.-mos), Old
Norse has -ar from the o-stems.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...