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Grammar - Nouns - Statistics
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Grammar
E-Mail Me		 This page contains reference grammar for the general and finer points of Old English. 
NounsPronounsVerbsAdjectivesAdverbsPrepositionsConjunctionsInterjections

Grammar Terms Statistics on Nouns
MasculineFeminineNeuter

 
When considering nouns in Old English, note that:

Of all nouns, the following percentages are observed:

Type Percentage
Masculine 41.7%
Feminine 36.9%
Neuter 20%
Variable 5.4%
Unknown 0.9%

And of Masculine nouns, we find:

Of the masculine nouns, the percentages are as follows:

Plural Type Percentage
(-es/-as) 63.9%
(-wes/-was) 0.3%
(-es/-) 5.3%
(-a/-a) 2.1%
(-n/-n) 19.9%
(-/-) 0.3%
h-ending 0.5%
umlaut 2.3%
plural 5.6%

So, if you have to guess an ending, guess (-es/-as).  If it's not that, then it's probably going to be (-n/-n).

Feminine and Neuter nouns will be handled later.

08/19/2005