Category:Old Irish ī-stem nouns

Old Irish ī-stem nouns.

These nouns are feminine, typically with the following endings:

• in the nominative singular: the bare stem (always ending in a palatalized consonant), with lenition of the following word;
• in the genitive singular: -e (or often -ae, with depalatalization of the final stem consonant), with aspiration/gemination of the following word;
• in the nominative plural: -i (or often -ai, with depalatalization of the final stem consonant), with aspiration/gemination of the following word.

The stem classes are named from the perspective of Proto-Celtic and may not still be visible in Old Irish inflections. These nouns derive from the Proto-Indo-European so-called devī or ī/yā inflection (see Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/déywih₂). Forms with overt endings often delete the final vowel of the stem, e.g. rígain becomes genitive singular rígnae. There were two subvariants, an older "long" one with overt endings in the accusative and sometimes dative singular, and a newer "short" one with only palatalization, by analogy with the ā-stems.