---
title: "\"Old English Noun Declensions.\" — paper by Cruz (1993)"
description: "Juan de la Cruz (University of Málaga; the printed header reads Selim 3, 1993, pp. 22 references."
authors: ["Juan De La Cruz"]
year: 1993
venue: "SELIM 3"
source: "https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/view/13622"
doi: "10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42"
licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/cruz-2019-old-english-noun-declensions/"
---
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# "Old English Noun Declensions."

**Authors:** Juan De La Cruz · **Year:** 1993 · **Venue:** [SELIM 3](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/) ([SELIM Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 1993](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/1993/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Oviedo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-oviedo/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42) · [PDF](https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/13622/12327) · [DOI 10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W6944556551)

**Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
Juan de la Cruz (University of Málaga; the printed header reads *Selim* 3, 1993, pp. 26–42) addresses a teaching problem. The traditional historical names of Old English noun classes, the "A declension" for masculines and neuters and the "Ō declension" for feminines, seem to contradict the attested forms. *Wulf* has no -a, and *giefu* ends in -u. Students who know Latin are further confused when handbooks match the OE A-class to the Latin second declension and the Ō-class to the Latin first. The article first surveys the major OE declensions: A, Ō, weak/N, I and U. It then places them in an Indo-European frame and gives reconstructed, Gothic, Old English and Latin paradigms side by side, for example *wulf*/*lupus*, *wylf*/*lupa* and *geoc*. Its central point is that Indo-European short *o* became Germanic *a*, and long *ā* became Germanic *ō*. Final short vowels were then lost under initial stress, and analogy reshaped the endings. A few relics, chiefly the -u of short-stemmed nouns, still show the old stems. This explains both the labels and the Latin correspondences without heavy apparatus.

## Key points
- The "great" declensions are three:
  - A: masculines and neuters, including -ja and -wa stems.
  - Ō: feminines, including -jō and -wō stems.
  - Weak N: e.g. *nama*/*naman*, which parallels Latin *nomen*/*nominis*. Only three neuters belong to it.
- The I and U declensions survive with few members. Only nine nouns are known in the U class, because most moved into the A and Ō classes.
- The key sound correspondences are IE short *o* = Germanic *a* (Latin 2nd declension) and IE long *ā* = Germanic *ō* (Latin 1st declension). Vowel quality shifts while length is kept.
- The -a in *wulfas*/*wulfa* is not the original stem vowel. It comes from the stem vowel contracting with the ending.
- The -u in N.Ac.pl. neuter *geocu*/*scipu* and in N.s. feminine *giefu* reflects one old ending, a collective -ā. This parallels Latin *templa* beside *rosa*.
- Cognates can fall into different classes across languages. Examples are *genus*/*cynn*, *pecus*/*feoh*, *cor*/*heorte* and *dens*/*tōth*.

## Interesting ideas
- An inflection class can keep a historical label that its surface forms no longer show, so the class ID and its realized endings are best stored as separate layers.
- Analogy can override regular sound change, as with G.s. *giefe* and Ac.pl. *giefa*. A model should therefore expect a regular rule plus a recorded analogical exception, not one rule for everything.
- When one form serves two functions, as when the neuter plural matches the feminine singular, the shared origin explains the ambiguity better than calling it a coincidence.
- The argument rebuilds a hidden form by lining up several independent witnesses (Gothic, Latin, OE relics), each of which preserves different traces.
- The paper explains confusing terminology by tracing it step by step to its source, aiming at the actual confusion learners report.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (tokens): the morphology tables in crate en can keep an abstract paradigm ID apart from surface suffix rules, so irregular or leveled forms do not force a mislabeled lemma class.
- **I2** (tokens): lemmatizer rules could carry an explicit "regular vs. analogical override" flag, which keeps each lemma decision explainable.
- **I3** (tree): number/case syncretism in morphology can be passed to the parser as an unresolved feature set and settled from syntactic context, instead of being guessed early.
- **I4** (learn): this mirrors silver data agreed by several witness parsers, where each witness may be partial but their alignment recovers the most trustworthy analysis.
- **I5** (answer): student-facing explanations can name the learner's likely misconception first and then give the chain of reasoning, instead of stating only the final answer.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

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## Cite

Cite as: Juan De La Cruz. 1993. "Old English Noun Declensions.". SELIM 3.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{cruz1993old,
  title = {{"Old English Noun Declensions."}},
  author = {Juan {De La Cruz}},
  booktitle = {SELIM 3},
  year = {1993},
  doi = {10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.3.1993.27-42}
}
```

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## References

22 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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*Updated 24 October 2026*