Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/-naną - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Reconstructed by Ringe^[1] from an alternating suffix *-nō- (singular) ~ *-na- (nonsingular), from Proto-Indo-European *-néh₂- ~ *-nh₂-, from n-infix presents to laryngeal-final roots that were reanalysed as a separate suffix (as in several other branches).

• IPA^(key): /nɑ.nɑ̃/

*-naną

1. Forms fientive verbs, with a sense of 'to become (the base)'.

These verbs are always intransitive, so there are no passive forms. They seemed to have originally lacked a past participle as well.

This suffix was preserved as a separate class only in Gothic. In Old High German, it mostly merged with the third weak class, while in the other descendants it merged with the second weak class.

• Proto-West Germanic: *-nan
  • Old English: -nian
    • Middle English: -nen, -enen
      • English: -en
      • Scots: -in
  • Old High German: -nēn
• Old Norse: -na
  • Icelandic: -na
  • Faroese: -na
  • Norwegian:
    • Norwegian Nynorsk: -na
    • Norwegian Bokmål: -ne
  • Swedish: -na
  • Danish: -ne
• Gothic: -𐌽𐌰𐌽 (-nan)