e.g. nominative Petrus, accusative Petrusan; similarly truhtīn "God, Lord", accusative truhtīnan. Examples of neuter nouns declined like wort: barn "child", sēr "pain", swërt "sword", honag "honey". Notes: The situation with long-stemmed disyllabic nouns ending in -al, -ar and -an is the same as for the corresponding masculines, e.g. nominative zwīfal "doubt", genitive zwīfles. Diminutives in -īn and -līn, e.g. magatīn "little maid" (neuter!), fingarlīn "little finger", are declined the same except in the Upper German dialects. In those dialects, final -n is dropped in the nominative and accusative, and furthermore in Allemannic the nominative and accusative plural end in -iu. The neuter plural should have had the ending -u in short-stem neuters, but has lost it due to analogy with long-stem neuters, which exhibit syncope as in Old Saxon and Old English. The -ja declension This declension was originally just the -a declension with an immediately preceding j. However, due to various sound laws, a new declension subcategory has arisen that does not exactly follow the form of the plain -a declension. Similar developments occurred in Greek and the Slavic languages, among others. This declension has as counterparts the second declension nouns in (-ius/-ium) of Latin. The counterparts in Greek are some second declension nouns in (-ios/-ion), as well as many that show effects of palatalization (e.g., -zdos < *-gyos or *-dyos; -llos < *-lyos; -ptos < -*pyos; -ssos or -ttos < -*tyos; -airos/-eiros/-oiros < *-aryos/-eryos/-oryos; -ainos/-einos/-oinos < *-anyos/enyos/onyos; etc., and similarly for neuter nouns in -ion or *-yon). It contains masculine and neuter nouns. {| class="wikitable" ! rowspan="3" | ! colspan="8" | hirti; hirte / hirtā (-a) shepard m.! colspan="8" | kunni; kunni race n.|- ! colspan="4" | Singular! colspan="4" | Plural! colspan="4" | Singular! colspan="4" | Plural|- ! colspan="2" | Early! colspan="2" | Late! colspan="2" | Early! colspan="2" | Late! colspan="2" | Early! colspan="2" | Late! colspan="2" | Early! colspan="2" | Late|- ! Nominative, Accusative|| hirti || –i || hirti || –i || hirte || –e || hirtā (-a) || –ā (–a)|| kunni || -i || kunni || -i || kunni || -i || kunni || -i |- ! Genitive|| hirtes || –es || hirtes || –es || hirteo (-io) || –eo (–io) || hirto || –o|| kunnes || –es || kunnes || –es || kunneo (-io) || –eo (–io) || kunno || –o|- ! Dative|| hirtie || –ie || hirte || –e || hirtum (-un, -on) ||