Re: [tied] Germanic nominal declensions

> > There's the point quoted by Peter:
> > -- 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."
>
> I haven't got the book to hand and don't know what particular data made
> Streitberg arrive at such a generalisation, but I suspect that most of
> those <-a>'s that follow a nasal occur in the particularly frequent word
> <staina> (<horna> is of course another example).

Streitberg cites un-nam for the loss of a, and staina, wraita for the
survival.

Peter