Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/nasō
Proto-Germanic
    
    Etymology
    
From Proto-Indo-European *néh₂s (“nose”). Compare Latin nāsus.
May, in Proto-Germanic, have been a plurale tantum, whose nominative ending *-ō goes back to the Proto-Indo-European thematic nominative dual ending *-oh₁, while the other cases displayed consonant-stem plural endings -ǭ, -miz, -unz. This presupposes a Proto-Germanic consonant stem *nas- (“nostril”).[1]
Griepentrog prefers to reconstruct, following Rasmussen, the original Proto-Indo-European paradigm as an acrostratic paradigm with rare ablaut a ~ ā: nom. sg. *Hnā́s-s, acc. sg. *Hnā́s-m̥, gen. sg. *Hnás-s (> *Hnás-os), dat. sg. *Hnás-ey, nom. du. *Hnā́s-h₁, nom. pl. *Hnā́s-es, acc. pl. *Hnás-m̥s.[2]
Griepentrog also considers the zero-grade form *nus- instead of **uns- regular, adducing parallels. Forms in *nus- may be additionally analogically influenced by a Proto-Indo-European verb *news- (“to sniff”).[3]
Pronunciation
    
- IPA(key): /ˈnɑ.sɔː/
Inflection
    
	
| ō-stemDeclension of *nasō (ō-stem) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | ||
| nominative | *nasō | *nasôz | |
| vocative | *nasō | *nasôz | |
| accusative | *nasǭ | *nasōz | |
| genitive | *nasōz | *nasǫ̂ | |
| dative | *nasōi | *nasōmaz | |
| instrumental | *nasō | *nasōmiz | |
Derived terms
    
Descendants
    
References
    
- Griepentrog, Wolfgang (1995) “Urgermanisch *nas-, Dual *nas-ō, *nus-ō "Nase", "Nasenloch"”, in Die Wurzelnomina des Germanischen und ihre Vorgeschichte (in German), Innsbruck, Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, →ISBN, pages 323–351, specifically pp. 329–333
- Griepentrog, p. 350
- Griepentrog, pp. 334f.
