plural. *haldaną: *hegald, *heldun > *held, *heldun *fanhaną: *febanh, *fengun > *feng, *fengun This new form of ablaut was then extended to other classes, by alternating *a with *e in classes 7a and 7b, and *ā with *ē in class 7d (after Proto-Germanic *ē had become *ā in Northwest Germanic). In class 7a, this resulted in the vowel *ei, which soon merged with *ē (from Germanic *ē2). *haitaną: *hegait, *hehtun > *heit, *heitun > *hēt, *hētun *hlaupaną: *hlelaup, *hlelpun > *hleup, *hleupun *lātaną: *lelōt, *leltun > *lēt, *lētun It is at this point that North and West Germanic begin to diverge. In West Germanic, class 7e took *eu as the past stem vowel, by analogy with existing verbs with initial *(s)w- such as *wōpijaną, *weup(un) and *swōganą, *swewg(un). *blōtaną: *blelōt(un) > *bleut(un) *hrōpaną: *hrerōp(un) > *hreup(un) ("to cry, ") *grōaną: *grerō(un) > *greu, *gre(u)wun In North Germanic, class 7e instead took *ē as the past stem vowel, probably by analogy with class 7c which also had a long stem vowel. *blōtaną: *blelōt(un) > *blēt(un) Stages 4 and 5 were not quite complete by the time of the earliest written records. While most class 7 verbs had replaced reduplication with ablaut entirely, several vestigial remains of reduplication are found throughout the North and West Germanic languages. Various other changes occurred later in the individual languages. *e in class 7c was replaced by *ē (> ia) in Old High German and Old Dutch, but by *eu (> ēo) in Old English. The following "Late Proto-Northwest-Germanic" can be reconstructed as descendants of the earlier Proto-Germanic forms given above. Note that ē became ā in Northwest Germanic. Proto-Germanic The Proto-Germanic language most likely used more than 500 strong roots. Although some roots are speculative, the language can be reconstructed with the following strong roots based on the work of Elmar Seebold (1970), Robert Mailhammer (2007) and Guus Kroonen (2013). Proto-Germanic had aorist-present roots, a remnant of the aorist aspect found in Proto-Indo-European. These verbs used the former aorist as a present tense form. The aorist had a zero-grade vowel, like parts 3 and 4 of the perfect. So these verbs have an anomalous vowel in the present tense, they decline regularly otherwise. Class 1 with 113 roots: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , *glīnaną, , *gnīdaną, , , *hlīdaną, *hnīgwaną - - ,