OIcel masculine root nouns
A very small class of OIcel masculine nouns do not fall into either the strong (vowel stem) or the weak (consonant stem) categories. The so-called root nouns take inflectional endings directly on the root, and only five such masculine nouns exist in OICel
| №.case | maðr | vetr | fingr | fótr | nagl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg.nom | mað-r | vetr-∅ | fingr-∅ | fót-r | nagl-∅ |
| sg.gen | mann-s | vetr-ar | fingr-ar | fót-ar | nagl-s |
| sg.dat | mann-i | vetr-i | fingr-i | fœt-i⁺ | nagl-i |
| sg.acc | mann-∅ | vetr-∅ | fingr-∅ | fót-∅ | nagl-∅ |
| pl.nom | menn-⁺ | vetr-∅ | fingr-∅ | fœt-r⁺ | negl-⁺ |
| pl.gen | mann-a | vetr-a | fingr-a | fót-a | nagl-a |
| pl.dat | mǫnn-um | vetr-um | fingr-um | fót-um | nǫgl-um |
| pl.acc | menn-⁺ | vetr-∅ | fingr-∅ | fœt-r⁺ | negl-⁺ |
Some ∅s are the result of phonological rules (e.g. sg.nom) while others are true morphological ∅s.