Proto-Indo-European noun

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Proto-Indo-European nouns were declined for eight cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, ablative, locative, vocative). There were three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

There are two major types of declension, thematic and athematic. Thematic nominal stems are formed with a suffix -o- (in vocative -e) and the stem does not undergo ablaut. The athematic stems are more archaic, and they are classified further by their ablaut behaviour (acro-dynamic, protero-dynamic, hystero-dynamic and holo-dynamic, after the positioning of the early PIE accent (dynamis) in the paradigm).

Case endings:

(Beekes 1995) (Ramat 1998)
Athematic Thematic
Masculine and Feminine Neuter Masculine and Feminine Neuter Masculine Neuter
Singular Plural Dual Singular Plural Dual Singular Plural Dual Singular Plural Singular Plural Dual Singular
Nominative -s, 0 -es -h₁(e) -m, 0 -h₂, 0 -ih₁ -s -es -h₁e? 0 (coll.) -(e)h₂ -os -ōs -oh₁(u)? -om
Accusative -m -ns -ih₁ -m, 0 -h₂, 0 -ih₁ -m̥ -m̥s -h₁e? 0 -om -ons -oh₁(u)? -om
Genitive -(o)s -om -h₁e -(o)s -om -h₁e -es, -os, -s -ōm -os(y)o -ōm
Dative -(e)i -mus -me -(e)i -mus -me -ei -ōi
Instrumental -(e)h₁ -bʰi -bʰih₁ -(e)h₁ -bʰi -bʰih₁ -bʰi -ōjs
Ablative -(o)s -ios -ios -(o)s -ios -ios
Locative -i, 0 -su -h₁ou -i, 0 -su -h₁ou -i, 0 -su, -si -oi -oisu, -oisi
Vocative 0 -es -h₁(e) -m, 0 -h₂, 0 -ih₁ -es (coll.) -(e)h₂

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