§ 42] Declension of Nouns 37 declensions in MHG. (cp. §§ 43, 44, 49). But as all final vowels either disappeared (some of them already inOHG.) or were weakened to e in MHG. (see §§ 7, 8), it is no longer practicable to retain the OHG. subdivision fully without entering into the oldest and in many cases into the prehistoric period of the language, which would be quite out of place in a MHG. grammar. The old ' Minor Declensions' had begun to pass over into the vocalic, especially into the i- and a-, declensions in the oldest OHG. The remnants of the old inflexions preserved in MHG. will be noted in the following paragraphs. The neuter nouns whose stems originally ended in -os, -es (cp. § 47) are in this Primer included in the strong declension. A. THE VOCALIC OR STRONG DECLENSION. i. Masculine Nouns. § 42. First declension.—To this declension belong all masculine nouns which form their plural in -e only. It includes : (a) the old masculine a-stems; (b) the old mascu- line wa-stems which lost their final -w after long vowels in OHG., as sē, sea, gen. sēwes, pl. sēwe, and similarly bu, dwelling, rē (also neuter), corpse, snē, snow, see § 36; and (c) the old masculine i-stems which could not have umlaut in the plural (§ 44). SING. Nom. Ace. tac, day kil, quill engel, angel Gen. tages kil(e)s engel(e)s Dat. tage kil(e) engel(e) PLUR. Nom. Ace. Gen. tage kil(e) engel(e) Dat. tagen kil(e)n engel(e)n