Greek Nouns: An Introduction

Properties of Nouns Nouns have –Gender: nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter (this is assigned grammatically, not biologically) –Articles: Greek nouns may be preceded by “the.” In Greek the forms are    (there are other forms of these articles) –Case: case is the function of the noun in the sentence as marked by a special ending on the noun –Number: nouns can be singular or plural

Cases of Nouns Greek has 5 cases, or five functions that nouns can perform in a sentence –Nominative – the noun as a subject –Genitive – the noun shows ownership –Dative – the noun is an indirect object –Accusative – the noun is a direct object –Vocative – the noun is used in direct address

Forms of the Articles SingularPlural Nominative  (masculine)  (feminine) Ò (neuter) oƒ aƒ t£ Accusative   Ò toÚj t£j t£

Declensions of Nouns Nouns belong to families with similar endings; these groups are called declensions, and therefore, writing all the forms of the nouns is called DECLINING There are two families we will study first: –1 st Declension – mostly feminine, characterized by an a or h at the end –2 nd Declension – masculine, feminine, and neuter forms, characterized by an o in the ending

1 st Declension SingularPlural Nominative  kr»n h The spring aƒ krÁn ai The springs Accusative  kr»n hn The spring (as an object of the verb) t¦j kr»n aj The springs (as an object of the verb)

2 nd Declension (masculine) SingularPlural Nominative  ¢gr Òj The field oƒ ¢gr o… The fields Accusative  ¢gr Òn The field (as the object of the verb) toÝj ¢gr oÚj The fields (as the object of the verb)

Agreement An noun is often used in a type of sentence known as the Subject-Verb-Complement sentence: –The work is big. – Ð pÒnoj ™stˆ makrÒj The noun here agrees in case, number, and gender with the complement (called a predicative adjective or predicative nominative depending on what part of speech the complement is)

Dictionary Entry When you look up a noun in the dictionary, you will see two forms: the nominative and the genitive singular These two forms are important because the genitive singular will help to identify the declension of the noun