The gen. plural had the ending of the weak declension already in the oldest period of the language. Through the nom. singular and the gen. and dat. plural having the same endings as the feminine weak declension ([§ 53]), ō-stems began in OHG. to be inflected after the analogy of the weak declension, especially in the plural. This process spread considerably in MHG. with concrete nouns, but not often with abstract nouns.
[§ 49.] Second declension.—To this declension belong all feminine nouns which form their plural in -e and have umlaut in the stem-vowel. It includes: (a) the old feminine i-stems; (b) the old u-stem hant, hand; and (c) several old consonantal stems, see below.
| Sing. | Plur. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MHG. | OHG. | MHG. | OHG. | |
| Nom. Acc. | anst | anst, favour | enste | ensti |
| Gen. | enste or anst | ensti | enste | ensteo, -io |
| Dat. | enste or anst | ensti | ensten | enstim |
In jugent (OHG. jugund, pl. jugundi), youth, gen. dat. jugende beside jugent, pl. jugende, the original -i being in the third syllable did not cause umlaut in the stem-syllable; and similarly tugent, valour.
hant, hand, originally belonged to the u-declension, which explains forms like gen. sing, and plural hande beside hende, dat. pl. handen beside henden. The old gen. plural has been preserved in NHG. allerhand, and the dat. plural in abhanden, beihanden, vorhanden, zuhanden.
Several old consonant stems went over partly or entirely into this declension, viz. maget, meit ([§ 37]), maid, pl. mägede or meide; kuo, cow, pl. küeje or küewe (OHG. kuoi), sū, sow, pl. siuwe (OHG. sūi); both these nouns generally remained uninflected in the gen. and dat. singular. naht, night, has gen. and dat. singular naht beside nähte; pl. nom. acc. gen. naht beside nähte, dat. nahten beside nähten, cp. also NHG. weihnachten, MHG. zën wīhen nahten. The MHG. adverbial gen. nahts, dës nahtes was formed after the analogy of dës tages. Like naht were also inflected brust, breast, and burc, citadel.
muoter, mother, and tohter, daughter, remain uninflected in the singular. In the plural they have umlaut: müeter, töhter.
B. The Weak Declension (N-Stems).
[§ 50.] The weak declension contains a large number of masculine and feminine nouns, but only four neuter nouns, viz. hërze, heart, ōre, ear, ouge, eye, and wange, cheek; these nouns, especially hërze, sometimes form their nom. acc. plural after the analogy of nouns like künne ([§ 46]). The original case endings of the weak declension had disappeared in the oldest period of the language except in the nom. singular (masc. -o, fem., and neut. -a), the gen. pl. (ōno) and dat. pl. (-ōm). Owing to the weakening of the -o, -a to -e in MHG. the nom. singular became alike in all genders. And similarly the endings -ōno, -ōm and the endings of the other oblique forms were all weakened to -en in MHG. ([§ 7]), so that the element which originally formed part of the stem came to be regarded as a case ending.
On the loss of the final and medial e in nouns like ar, eagle, bir (fem.), pear, gevangen(e), prisoner, beside the inflected forms arn, birn, gevangen from *gevangen-en through the intermediate stage *gevangenn, see [§ 9, 1, 2].