Greek Nouns and the 1st Declension Feminine Endings - "Lesson 4" - "From Alpha to Omega" by Anne Groton

Stephen Alexander Beach 

Content from this lesson is taken from the book "From Alpha to Omega" by Anne Groton and put into my own words. (I just want to say from the outset, that I may have misunderstood or written down wrong content from the book, so please realize these are my own notes and not any official or trustworthy copy of her book.)

Let's talk about nouns ...

Nouns 

A noun is a person, place, or thing, and in Greek there are three families, or declensions, of nouns. The ending of nouns are going to change to show gender, number, and case. 

Gender

There are three genders in Greek, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Male names are going to be in the masculine, feminine ones in the feminine, but objects are not necessarily neuter. Rather, objects can be masculine and feminine just the same as names, and need to be memorized. Nouns never change their gender. 

Number 

Just like verbs, nouns can be singular, plural, or dual. 

Case

Nominative - Designates subjects and their predicates. "...a predicate noun is equated with the subject and therefore must be 'equal' to it in case." 

Genitive - The genitive shows a noun modifying another noun, such as in expressing the possession of something. Ex. The book of the pirate, or the pirate's book. Likewise, in Greek, the genitive is used for prepositional phrases expressing "a source or point of origin ('away from,' 'out of,' etc.)." 

Dative - Used to expresses someone or thing that is associated with "the action or state described in the sentence, but it is not the subject or the direct object." In English we express this with the words "to" or "for". Dative also is used for prepositions expressing "means, accompaniment, location, or time ('by,' 'with,' 'in,' 'at,' etc.)." 

Accusative - Used to designate "...the sentence's direct object (the person, place, or thing that directly experiences or undergoes the action of the verb)." Accusative is also used for prepositions that "...denote a destination or goal or an extent of time or space ('into,' 'to,' 'toward,' 'for,' etc.)."

Vocative - The cased used for nouns which are being addressed directly. Ex. "Farewell Socrates!". 

Word Order

The meaning of a sentence does not depend on word order as it does in English. Rather, it is the endings which convey the role in the sentence that the word plays. Word order in Greek may be manipulated in order so that the speaker could "emphasize or which grouping of sound was most pleasing to the ear." 

Feminine First Declension Nouns 

First declension nouns are both feminine and masculine. Within the feminine there are two forms. 

Rule - Use ᾱ, ᾱς, ᾱ (iota subscript missing here), ᾱν, ᾱ as endings only if the preceding letter is ε, ℩, ρ ; otherwise they are η, ης, η (iota subscript missing here), ην, η.

Fem. Singular	Fem. Singular	Fem Plural	Fem Plural
ᾱ	η	α℩	α℩
ᾱς	ης	ων	ων
ᾷ	ῃ	αις	αις
ᾱν	ην	ᾱς	ᾱς
ᾱ	η	α℩	α℩

Rule - "...the nominative and vocative are identical in the plural of every declension (though not always in the singular."

Accenting 1st Declension Nouns

Rule - Accenting Greek noun is "persistent". "...the location of the accent in the nominative singular shows where the accent wants to stay or 'persist.' This refers to the actual letter that it is on. Memorization is required. 

Exception - "If the accent falls on the ultima in the genitive and dative singular and plural, it changes from acute to circumflex." 

Exception - "In the genitive plural of first-declension nouns, the ultima is always accented, even if that seems illogical." 

Definite Articles 

Greek uses definite articles unlike Latin, and "Greek's definite article changes its form to match the gender, number, and case of the noun that it modifies." There is to vocative definite articles because it's repetitive in identifying the one addressed. 

1st declension feminine def articles	Sing	Plural
Nom	ἡ	αἱ
Gen	τῆς	τῶν
Dat	τῇ	ταῖς
Acc	τήν	τάς  (a is missing macron)

In translating the definite article into English, there are some peculiarities. 

Dative vs. Prepositional Phrases

One of the main uses of the dative is to show who the action is directed towards with verbs like: "gives, offers, presents, dedicates, entrusts, or promises" someone/thing to another person/thing. Now there are certain verbs like "sending, writing, or saying" where one could use either a prepositional phrase or the dative case. "The indirect object usually has a more personal flavor; the recipient is viewed as the beneficiary of the subject's action. As the object of the preposition, the recipient is viewed as the point toward which the action is directed (its destination or goal)." 

Vocabulary 

When nouns are listed as vocabulary, you will see the nominative singular, the genitive singular, and the definitive article. The declension that the nouns belongs to is shown by the first two forms, and the gender by the def article.