Greek I, Chapter 1

This lesson introduces the -o declension in Greek.  Greek nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are all declined--no puns please!   That is to say, nouns etc. have different forms for different uses.  We can see a little bit of this in English nouns, which most often add S or ES to make a plural and 'S and S' to make possessives.  Our personal pronouns are even more variable:

I      my      me

We   our    us

These six forms correspond roughly in Greek to nominative singular (I), genitive singular (my), accusative singular (me); nominative plural (we), genitive plural (our), and accusative plural (us).

While Latin has 5 plus cases, and Russian and Serbian even 7 (though often with identical forms) Greek has four plus cases:  Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative.  What is this "plus" I have mysteriously referred to?  It is the vocative case, which is used when addressing someone as in, "O students, study this lesson!"  But, the vocative is everywhere identical to the nominative, except for -O declension singular nouns and names, where the ending is -ε.  as in:  ἄνθρωπε.

It might have been nice if early Greeks (or Germans or Romans or Slavs)  had agreed to decline all nouns the same way, but it was not to be.  While there is some historic connection between endings, they were complicated and corrupted by, for example, vowels in the stem of the word.  Latin has five declensions based on stem endings:  A, O, Consonant, E, U.  Greek has only three:  A and O as in Latin, and a grab-bag declension with consonant and E stems.

The O declension is perhaps the simplest and corresponds to the Latin O declension, where, however, the O endings in many places became short U.  Please memorize the declensions in C&S.

A brief word on the cases.  In Greek, as in other Indo-European languages (Latin, Sanskrit, Germanic, Slavic), there are many uses of the cases, but for each of them there is a fundamental sense.

The Nominative case is easiest.  It is basically used for the subject of a sentence and any word that agrees with the subject, what we used to call in English predicate nouns and predicate adjectives.  (Of course adjectival modifiers agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number, and case.)

The Genitive case is used when one noun modifies another.  This can express many relations, usually translated into English by either our possessive (man's) or with of plus a noun.  This can express possession as in John's book, but also the object of a feeling or action as in "love of money" or the subject of a feeling or action as in "John's hatred" or the origin or source as in "the source of the trouble,"   C&S are right to introduce possession at the beginning, because that is most common, but the Greeks and Romans in calling it Γενική or genitivus indicate they thought of it as a case of origin.  In Greek, it can be used with prepositions to express place from which.

The Dative case is the case of indirect relationships, often but not always indicated by "to" or "for."  It is thus the case of giving to someone, namely, the indirect object, but can express belonging to, or in whose interest.

The Accusative case is used to limit the object or extent of a verbal action.  If the verb is transitive, like "hit",  a noun or pronoun in the accusative represents the object of the hitting as in, "John hit George."  If it is a verb of motion, the accusative is used, typically with a preposition, to indicate the object or end of the motion as in, "John went to Paris," but it can also limit the motion in terms or space, as in "John ran for three miles," or time, as in "John ran for three hours."  For now, we'll be content to think of  the accusative as used for direct objects or for objects of prepositions indicating place to which.

Accents

Rule 1:  Noun accents are persistent when they can be.

Rule 2: When a word is accented on a short ultima, the accute accent is changed to a grave when followed by any word that has its own accent.

Rule 3: When the nominative singular is accented on the ultima, it changes to a circumflex, when the vowel is long, thus άδελφός  ἀδελφοῦ.

Rule 4:  When the nominative is accented on the antepenult, the accent shifts to the penult in forms with a long vowel:  ἄνθρωπος  ἀνθρώπου

AUDIO

Study Suggestions

1.  Memorize everything from English to Greek. Say the paradigms and vocabulary out loud several times and test yourself and test a fellow-student if you have one.
2. Some people learn better by marching around, reciting.  Others by simply pronouncing.  Hardly anyone learns a language well just with the eyes.
3. Always do your best to memorize the material BEFORE doing the exercises.  If you find yourself looking back to the lesson, you need to go back over it again before doing the exercise.  Of course in correcting, you will want to check back.
4. Never be afraid to ask what you think may be a stupid question.  Questions are essential to learning and help everyone.  If younger students are shy about this, ask a parent to post the query..

Supplementary Reading

1. Read this passage aloud.  Then listen to my rendition.

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ.² Ἀβραὰμ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰσαάκ,Ἰσαὰκ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰακώβ, Ἰακὼβ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰούδαν καὶ τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ,³Ἰούδας δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Φάρες καὶ τὸν Ζάρα ἐκ τῆς Θαμάρ, Φάρες δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸνἙσρώμ, Ἑσρὼμ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἀράμ,⁴ Ἀρὰμ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἀμιναδάβ, Ἀμιναδὰβ δὲἐγέννησεν τὸν Ναασσών, Ναασσὼν δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Σαλμών,⁵ Σαλμὼν δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸνΒόες ἐκ τῆς Ῥαχάβ, Βόες δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰωβὴδ ἐκ τῆς Ῥούθ, Ἰωβὴδ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸνἸεσσαί,⁶ Ἰεσσαὶ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Δαυὶδ τὸν βασιλέα.

Audio Part II