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Ancient Greek for Everyone:
A New Digital Resource for
Beginning Greek
Unit 3 part 1:
Introduction to the Greek Noun
2015 edition
Wilfred E. Major
[email protected]
Ancient Greek for Everyone
This class
AGE Unit 3: Introduction to the Greek Noun
• You have learned the basics of Greek verbs: what
actions they describe, how to form them, and how to
translate them.
• Next we add words that will enrich these actions with
much concrete information: NOUNS.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A NOUN indicates a person, place or thing.
• An English noun by itself indicates what the person,
place or thing is (child, divinity, ruler…)
• and whether it is singular or plural.
• A Greek noun, however, normally communicates
THREE pieces of information:
– Gender
– Number
– Case
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
• All Greek nouns have gender.
• The gender may simply reflect the gender of a person or animal.
• In some cases, the form or spelling of a word dictates its
grammatical gender, regardless of its meaning (so ἀνδρεία, the
Greek word for “manliness,” is grammatically feminine).
• In many cases, however, the gender was assigned to nouns so long
ago that Greeks did not know or understand why a noun had a
specific gender.
– Number
– Case
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
• Greek distinguishes three grammatical genders:
• Masculine
• Feminine
• Neuter (= the Latin word “neither,” meaning neither
masculine nor feminine)
– Number
– Case
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
• Greek distinguishes three grammatical genders:
• Masculine, Feminine, Neuter
• English mostly distinguishes these three genders only in
pronouns: he, she, it.
• For Greek nouns, by contrast, the gender is as much a
part of the noun as its spelling and you must know a
noun’s gender to comprehend Greek.
– Number
– Case
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
– Number
•
•
•
•
Like English nouns, Greek nouns indicate singular and plural:
singular: child, divinity, ruler
plural: children, divinities, rulers
English nouns most often indicate the plural by adding –s, but
some nouns use different suffixes and other changes to indicate
the plural.
– Case
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
– Number
– Case
• Greek puts every noun into a particular case to
indicate its role in an action or place in an idea.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
– Number
– Case
Greek uses four cases:
• Nominative
• Genitive
• Dative
• Accusative
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative: The nominative case indicates that a
noun is the subject of a verb.
– Genitive
– Dative
– Accusative
Mary gives the rulers the child of Joseph.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative
– Genitive
– Dative
– Accusative: The accusative case indicates that a
noun is the first (primary, direct) object of a verb.
Mary gives the rulers the child of Joseph.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative
– Genitive
– Dative: The dative case indicates that a noun is
the second (indirect) object of a verb.
– Accusative:
Mary gives the rulers the child of Joseph.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative
– Genitive
– Dative: The dative case also indicates the means,
tool or instrument used to accomplish an action.
English most often uses “with” to indicate this use. As
often, where English uses a separate word, Greek uses a
suffix.
– Accusative:
Mary carries the child with her hands.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative
– Genitive: The genitive case plays roughly the
same role as the preposition “of” in English.
As often, where English uses a separate word, Greek
uses a suffix.
– Dative
– Accusative:
Mary gives the rulers the child of Joseph.
The cup is empty of water.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Nominative
– Genitive: While English can indicate possession either
with “of” or an ’s, Greek can indicate possession only
with the Genitive case. All the highlighted words would
be in the Genitive case in Greek, with no distinction
among them.
Mary gives the rulers the child of Joseph.
Mary gives the rulers Joseph’s child.
Joseph’s cup is empty of water.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– Study the sentences below.
– They are the same sentence as on the previous slides,
but with pronouns substituted for the nouns.
– Why are the sentences still wrong?
– English uses case forms for personal pronouns, but not
for nouns. Greek uses case forms for nearly all nouns.
Her gives they its.
Mary gives the rulers the child of he.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Greek uses four cases:
– See how changing the case form of the pronouns makes
the sentence correct:
She gives them it (it to them).
Mary gives the rulers his child (of him, of his).
• English uses case forms for personal pronouns, but not
for nouns. Greek uses case forms for nearly all nouns.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
– Number
– Case
PARSING: To “parse” a Greek noun means to identify the
above three qualities about a specific noun form.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• PARSING: To “parse” a Greek noun means to
identify the three qualities about a specific noun form.
• For example, a specific noun form could be
– Masculine
– Singular
– Nominative
• Once you know these three items and the noun’s meaning, you
have identified the noun completely and understand what it
means.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
AGE Unit 3: Introduction to the Greek Noun
• Now you have learned the what information a Greek
noun conveys.
• Next we learn how a Greek noun conveys this
information.
• You have seen how English nouns change to indicate
number and how English pronouns change to fit their
role in a sentence.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Building a Greek Noun
• To begin building a Greek noun, start with the “stem.”
• The stem tells you to what person, place or thing the noun
refers:
παιδ = “child”
δαιμον = “divinity”
ἀρχοντ = “ruler”
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Building a Greek Noun
• All the nouns in this part are masculine in gender.
• As with verbs, Greek adds suffixes to the stems to indicate
further information.
• Since Greek has two numbers (singular, plural) and four
cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative), Greek
nouns need eight different endings to cover all the
possibilities.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Plural
Nominative –ς
Genitive –ος
Dative –ι
Accusative –α
•
•
•
•
Nominative –ες
Genitive –ων
Dative –σι
Accusative –ας
Building a Greek Noun
Third Declension Endings
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Building a Greek Noun
• All the nouns in this part are masculine in gender.
• We begin with nouns whose stem ends in a dental (-τ/-δ/-θ/-ν).
• Recall that when a sigma follows a dental, the dental disappears
and the sigma remains: δ + σ = σ.
• Notice that two of the noun endings involve adding a sigma to
the stem: nom. sing. = -ς, dat. plu. = -σι.
παιδ = “child”
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Nom. (παιδς ) παῖς
Gen.
παιδός
Dat.
παιδί
Acc.
παῖδα
Plural
•
•
•
•
Nom.
παῖδες
Gen.
παίδων
Dat. (παιδσι ) παισί
Acc.
παῖδας
Building a Greek Noun
declension of παῖς, παιδός ὁ child
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Spell it Like It Sounds!
• Remember: A word ending in -σι can add a final -ν
(“nu-movable”) to make pronunciation easier:
– For example, εἴκοσι εἶσι  εἴκοσιν εἶσιν.
– This added -ν has no meaning; it simply helps
pronunciation.
– For the noun παῖς, this means the dative plural form
παισί can appear as παισίν. It does not affect the
parsing, meaning or translation.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
DECLINING: The process of writing or saying all the forms
of a noun is called “declining” them (ancient scholars
metaphorically described noun forms as “declining” down
from their nominative singular form).
• A Greek noun communicates THREE pieces of
information:
– Gender
– Number
– Case
PARSING: To “parse” a Greek noun means to identify the
above three qualities about a specific noun form.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• PARSING: to “parse” a Greek noun means to identify the
above three qualities about a specific noun form.
• For example, παῖς is
– Masculine
– Singular
– Nominative
• The above information, plus the stem meaning, tells you
that “child” is the subject of the sentence.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Building a Greek Noun
• All the nouns in this part are masculine in gender.
• We begin with nouns whose stem ends in a dental (-τ/-δ/-θ/-ν).
• Notice that two of the noun endings involve adding a sigma to
the stem: Nom. sing. = -ς, Dat. plu. = -σι.
• Recall that when a sigma follows a dental, the dental disappears
and the sigma remains: ν + σ = σ.
• But remember the unpopularity of sigma and the process of
“compensatory lengthening,” where a Greek word drops a
sigma and lengthens a vowel to make up for the loss.
δαιμον = “divinity”
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
• Nom. (δαιμονς )
δαίμων
• Gen.
δαίμονος
• Dat.
δαίμονι
• Acc.
δαίμονα
Plural
• Nom.
δαίμονες
• Gen.
δαιμόνων
• Dat. (δαιμονσι )
δαίμοσι
• Acc.
δαίμονας
Building a Greek Noun
declension of δαίμων -ονος ὁ divinity
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Building a Greek Noun
• All the nouns in this part are masculine in gender.
• We begin with nouns whose stem ends in a dental (-τ/-δ/-θ/-ν).
• Notice that two of the noun endings involve adding a sigma to
the stem: Nom. sing. = -ς, Dat. plu. = -σι.
• Recall that when a sigma follows a dental, the dental disappears
and the sigma remains: τ + σ = σ.
• But remember the unpopularity of sigma and the process of
“compensatory lengthening,” where a Greek word drops a
sigma and lengthens a vowel to make up for the loss.
ἀρχοντ = “ruler”
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
• Nom. (ἀρχοντς )
ἄρχων
• Gen.
ἄρχοντος
• Dat.
ἄρχοντι
• Acc.
ἄρχοντα
Plural
• Nom.
ἄρχοντες
• Gen.
ἀρχόντων
• Dat. (ἀρχοντσι )
ἄρχουσι
• Acc.
ἄρχοντας
Building a Greek Noun
declension of ἄρχων -οντος ὁ ruler
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• VOCABULARY: Since the nominative singular displays
variations in response to the sigma, nouns are listed in
three parts:
– The nominative singular: so you always see exactly
how this form appears.
– The genitive singular: so you can see the stem
(everything before the ending -ος)
– The gender: the word ὁ indicates that these nouns are
masculine.
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Examples of Vocabulary entries
• ἄρχων, ἄρχοντος ὁ ruler
• δαίμων, δαίμονος ὁ divinity
• παῖς, παιδός ὁ child
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Building a Greek Noun
• Why does the word ὁ indicate the noun is masculine in gender?
• This is the word “the” in Greek.
• More specifically, it is the “definite article.”
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Building a Greek Noun
• The definite article is far and away the most common word in
Greek (making up about 10% of Greek texts all by itself), so it
is essential to understanding Greek.
• Like nouns, the definite article in Greek has gender, number and
case. Also like nouns, then, it needs eight forms to cover the
two numbers (singular and plural) and four cases (nominative,
genitive, dative, accusative).
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
ὁ
τοῦ
τῷ
τόν
Plural
•
•
•
•
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Building a Greek Noun
The masculine definite article
οἱ
τῶν
τοῖς
τούς
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Building a Greek Noun
• Like nouns, the definite article in Greek has
gender, number and case.
• The noun and the definite article must parse the
same: they must be the same in gender, number
and case.
• Most often, Greek includes the definite article,
even when English does not (e.g., with proper
names). Unless there is some reason to omit it,
expect that the definite article will be present.
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Nom. ὁ παῖς
Gen. τοῦ παιδός
Dat. τῷ παιδί
Acc. τὸν παῖδα
Plural
•
•
•
•
Nom. οἱ παῖδες
Gen. τῶν παίδων
Dat. τοῖς παισί
Acc. τοὺς παῖδας
Building a Greek Noun
Declension + article of παῖς, παιδός ὁ child
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Nom. ὁ δαίμων
Gen. τοῦ δαίμονος
Dat. τῷ δαίμονι
Acc. τὸν δαίμονα
Plural
•
•
•
•
Nom. οἱ δαίμονες
Gen. τῶν δαιμόνων
Dat. τοῖς δαίμοσι
Acc. τοὺς δαίμονας
Building a Greek Noun
declension + article of δαίμων -ονος ὁ divinity
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Singular
•
•
•
•
Nom. ὁ ἄρχων
Gen. τοῦ ἄρχοντος
Dat. τῷ ἄρχοντι
Acc. τὸν ἄρχοντα
Plural
•
•
•
•
Nom. οἱ ἄρχοντες
Gen. τῶν ἀρχόντων
Dat. τοῖς ἄρχουσι
Acc. τοὺς ἄρχοντας
Building a Greek Noun
declension + article of ἄρχων -οντος ὁ ruler
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Unit 3 part 1 Vocabulary: DCC Classical
•
•
•
•
•
ἀγών -ῶνος ὁ contest
δαίμων -ονος ὁ divinity
ἡγεμών -όνος ὁ guide, commander
παῖς, παιδός ὁ child
πούς, ποδός ὁ foot
Ancient Greek for Everyone
Unit 3 part 1 Vocabulary: NT (New Testament)
• αἰών -ῶνος ὁ age, eternity
• ἄρχων -οντος ὁ ruler
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Unit 3 part 1 Vocabulary: Core
• ἄρχων -οντος ὁ ruler
Ancient Greek for Everyone
• Next
– Feminine nouns.