Here belong most of the Common Substantives in the lan-
:guage. Any arrangement, however satisfactory, is more or
Jess disturbed by fluctuation in the so-called case-endings,
;chiefly in the plural, and often even with the same writer. This
-occurred to some extent also in the earlier periods of High
'German (O. H. G. and M. H. G.). Hence a convenient and
practical arrangement is here attempted. Ancient declension
will be referred to only so far as it will aid in explaining the
<lifflculties involved.
Then foUow general rules for termination.
^Special or Regular Declension op Common Substantives.
Thi-ee declensions are here given. Since the original endings
IJiave suffered loss and decay, and many substantives have



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GBEMAN. 27

shifted their original declension, the necessity for a third or
mixed declension will be thoroughly understood. (See Com-
parative Table of Teutonic Declension .) The terms strong'
and weak, as usually employed in New High German, do not
express satisfactorily their meaning in earlier Teutonic speech.
The Umlaut which arose originally from assimilation (see Eu-
phonic Sound Variation) is in New High German also a gram-
matical device, and employed as an auxiliary in declension to
strengthen the plural notion. Some grammarians have arranged
the Substantives under two declensions (called strong and
weak), some have given eight declensions, others as many
as ten.
The nom. sing., which is the form found in the dictionary,
is here taken as the stem form. Earlier Teutonic shows special
and characteristic stem endings : 1) a-stems : Masc. tag-a,
Sap, day; neut. wort-a, SBort, word, etc., etc. (See Compara-
tive Table .)....
Then follow carefully arranged tables of all the endings of
the three Regular Declensions with their classes, which are
determined by the forms of the gen. sing, and of the nom.
