< Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic
Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/-naną
 | This Proto-Germanic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence. |
Proto-Germanic
Etymology
Reconstructed by Ringe[1] from an alternating suffix *-nō- (singular) ~ *-na- (nonsingular), from Proto-Indo-European *-néh₂- ~ *-nh₂-, from n-infix presents to laryngeal-final roots that were reanalysed as a separate suffix (as in several other branches).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /nɑ.nɑ̃/
Verb
*-naną
- Forms fientive verbs, with a sense of 'to become (the base)'.
Inflection
These verbs are always intransitive, so there are no passive forms. They seemed to have originally lacked a past participle as well.
Conjugation of *-naną (weak class 4)
| active voice | passive voice | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| present tense | indicative | subjunctive | imperative | indicative | subjunctive |
| 1st singular | *-nō | *-naų | — | — | — |
| 2nd singular | *-nōsi | *-nais | *-nō | — | — |
| 3rd singular | *-nōþi | *-nai | *-nōþau | — | — |
| 1st dual | *-nōs | *-naiw | — | — | — |
| 2nd dual | *-naþiz | *-naiþiz | *-naþiz | — | — |
| 1st plural | *-namaz | *-naim | — | — | — |
| 2nd plural | *-naþ | *-naiþ | *-naþ | — | — |
| 3rd plural | *-nanþi | *-nain | *-nanþau | — | — |
| past tense | indicative | subjunctive | |||
| 1st singular | *-nōdǭ | *-nōdēdį̄ | |||
| 2nd singular | *-nōdēz | *-nōdēdīz | |||
| 3rd singular | *-nōdē | *-nōdēdī | |||
| 1st dual | *-nōdēdū | *-nōdēdīw | |||
| 2nd dual | *-nōdēdudiz | *-nōdēdīdiz | |||
| 1st plural | *-nōdēdum | *-nōdēdīm | |||
| 2nd plural | *-nōdēdud | *-nōdēdīd | |||
| 3rd plural | *-nōdēdun | *-nōdēdīn | |||
| present | past | ||||
| participles | *-nandz | — | |||
Derived terms
Proto-Germanic class 4 weak verbs
Descendants
This suffix was preserved as a separate class only in Gothic. In Old High German, it mostly merged with the third weak class, while in the other descendants it merged with the second weak class.
- Old English: -nian
- Middle English: -nen, -enen
- English: -en
- Middle English: -nen, -enen
- Old High German: -nen
- Old Norse: -na
- Icelandic: -na
- Faroese: -na
- Norwegian:
- Norwegian Nynorsk: -na
- Norwegian Bokmål: -ne
- Swedish: -na
- Danish: -ne
- Westrobothnian: -gn, -n, -än
- Gothic: -𐌽𐌰𐌽 (-nan)
References
- Ringe, Donald (2006) From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of English; 1), Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN