Ablaut in Armenian nasal declension

Old Armenian consonant nominal inflection is characterised by different alternation patterns of inflectional stems within the paradigm. Such a phenomenon is analysed in the perspective of word-and-paradigm morphology. As a result, all the patterns displaying the alternation of two or three different inflectional stems are derivable from the more complex alternation pattern, including four different stems, which attest three different reflexes of PIE ablaut: zero-grade, e-grade and o-grade. This latter paradigm can be considered not only the pivot of the variable Armenian nominal inflection: it is also considerable as an archaism, on the bases of comparative data offered by Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Greek and Gothic.