Noun classes
Wistrish noun classes can be divided into three major groups: strong nouns, weak nouns and consonant stem nouns. Besides these 3 main noun groups there is a smaller (mostly closed) static consonant nouns.
Strong and weak nouns in Wistrish are classified by their specific thematic vowel*, a vowel that frequently appears in endings and in compound words. Consonant stems are generally classified by the consonant they end in.
* Yes, for someone who is familiar with IE linguistics "thematic vowel" in a germanic weak noun (and some strong noun classes too) is going to sound funny, but bear with me, as Wistrish thematic vowels are (mostly) unrelated and are their own thing.
Strong nouns
On their part can be divided into big a-stem, i-stem and u-stem groups:
- A-stem group includes masculine a-stem, feminine ō-stem and neuter a-stem classes.
- I-stem group includes masculine i-stem, feminine i-stem and neuter i-stem classes.
- U-stem group includes masculine u-stem, feminine u-stem and neuter u-stem classes.
Weak nouns
Divided into groups, mirroring the strong noun groups (the pattern that will become important in adjectives):
- A-stem group includes masculine an-stem, feminine ōn-stem and neuter an-stem classes.
- I-stem group includes masculine in-stem, feminine īn-stem and neuter in-stem classes.
- U-stem group includes masculine un-stem, feminine ūn-stem and neuter un-stem classes.
Consonant stems
Has numerous smaller classes of nouns that display ablauting, which can be grouped into two main groups:
- Common classes - include pairs of very similar masculine-feminine declensions.
- Neuter classes - includes purely neuter declensions.
Even when a neuter class and a common class shares a consonant (i.e. masculine/feminine z-stem and neuter z-stem), these classes are not related. Neuter counterparts of gendered human-term common consonant stem nouns use strong neuter i-stem declension instead.
Static consonant stems
Mainly small closed classes, which behave somewhat similarly to strong and consonant stems in their own respect. Static consonant stems do not undergo ablauting. These are:
- Masculine/feminine static consonant stem.
- Neuter consonant stem.
- Masculine nd-stem (it is a much larger and productive class compared to other static consonant stems, which is conjugated similarly to the masculine static consonant stem, but with minor differences).