Strong Neuter Nouns

Neuter nouns are nouns which end in consonants but whose plurals use 'u' instead of 'as'. In fact, the only real difference between masculine and neuter nouns is that the nominative and accusative plurals either use 'u' instead of 'as' or drop the suffix altogether. The rest of the paradigm is identical. Examine the two sentences below: 'The kings saw the ships' and 'The women took the stones'.

Nominative plurals and accusative plurals of the Strong Neuter declension use -u only after short syllables. A short syllable is one which ends with one short vowel and one consonant, for example, scip and god.

Nominative plurals and accusative plurals with a long syllable in the stem have no inflectional ending. A long syllable can be a short vowel followed by two consonants, like 'word', a long vowel with one consonant, like 'wif', or a stem with two vowels, like 'bearn'.

So 'scip - ship' and 'god - deity' become scipu and godu in the nominative and accusative plural, while word - word, wif - woman, and bearn - child stay as word, wif, and bearn in the nominative and accusative plural. Examine the two sentences below: The children heard the words of the king and The gods saw the children.

As you may have noticed, the lack of a suffix for plural neuter nouns can sometimes make it difficult to know whether a word is in the singular or the plural. If it cannot be infered from context, look for a plural demonstrative pronoun such as þa in the example above.

How a word is pronounced plays a major role in how it is declined, so examine the stems of scip - ship, word - word, bearn - child, wif - woman, and god - deity in the following table closely and consider which ones have a suffix and which do not, and what this might mean for how they are pronounced.

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