Re: [tied] Germanic nominal declensions

>Acc. *-om *-aN
>n. *-om *-aN
>?a suggestion that *-aN had perhaps already been reduced to -0
>in Runic,

Yes. Streitberg says "That at one time nasal vowels had come into existence
in the accusative is shown by the fact that older northern runic
inscriptions already have apocope of -a in absolute auslaut.., whereas an -a
that follows a nasal survives."

>Gen. *-osyo *-asa
>Runic -as, OE (West-Saxon) -æs > -es, OS -as. Gothic -is comes from the
>pronominal ending *-esyo > *-esa. Loewe suggests that OS -es and OHG -es
>cannot come directly from *-esa, which would have given *-is (*e > *i when
>unstressed), and represent contamination between -as and -is, but I very
>much doubt that. I think *e before *a simply gives /e/, even in unstressed
>position. Any more recent suggestions?

Streitberg is not very helpful here. He says the e of unstressed syllabel
in OS and OHG is striking. He does however add other interesting stuff:
In Germanic only the genitive -so (not -syo) appears, and the final vowel
vanished before the beginning of the [attested dialects]. It is striking
that the s of the ending is always voiceless. [He therefore rejects accent
variations, and also suggests analogical rebuilding] He says: ON shows -o-
in the stem vowel, and early OE, but -e- appears in Gothic, OS and OHG. I
note that he gives teh OS as -es, not -as as you have it. He quotes dages

>Dat. *-o:i *-ai
>Loc. *-oi *-ai
>North and West Germanic -e could come from either Dat. or Loc. Gothic -a
>cannot come from either (we'd expect -ai), so it's a instrumental.

Streitberg says "It isdifficult to give a positive explanation of the Gothic
dative. Most probably it is from a one-syllable pronominal instrumental
(examples)"

Instrumental: Sreitberg also notes forms in *-mi and *-bho

Locative: traces in OE "instrumental" -e < -i [examples]; also OIce
dative -e.

That's a beginning at least. More later.
Peter