The structure of the noun in Old German and types of its declension.

The noun in I-El-s had a 3-part structure: the root, the stem building suffix and the ending. For example: daʒam. The stem-building suffix performed 2 functions:

• to build the stem

• to show the type of declension,

but in the cause of time this suffix merged with the infection, so it become difficult to identify it, as the result the Germanic noun of later periods had a 2-part structure: the root and the ending, only sometimes in oblique cases while declaiming the noun one could see some traces of the stem building suffix.

According to the type of the suffix all nouns in Gl-s could be divided into 4 types of Declension:

• Strong Declension included nouns with vocalic stems (vowel stem): - a, - o, - u, - i (suffixes)

• Weak Declension included nouns with the - n suffix

• Consonantal Declension included nouns with - r, - s suffixes

• Root Declension. The stems of the nouns of this declension coincided with the root.

So Old Gl had a complicated system of noun Declensions at the early periods of history.