Koine Greek/Introduction to Nouns

A noun indicates a person, place, or thing. An English noun form normally indicates whether it's singular or plural. However, nouns in Greek are declined (have ending changes) based on case, number (singular or plural), and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). The case of a noun indicates the function of the noun in the sentence. There are five different cases: The nominative case marks the subject of a phrase as well as the predicate nominative (i.e., the object of a linking verb (or copulative verb), such as to be). Examples: In the sentence "The dog bit the man", dog would be in the nominative case. Also, in the sentence "The man is a soldier", both "man" and "soldier" are in the nominative case. The genitive case denotes source or origin (this function is also called the ablative), or kind or possession. It is also often used for an object of a preposition. It is frequently translated as "of ...". Examples: In the phrase "The man's wife", or equivalently, "the wife of the man", man would be in the genitive case. The dative case denotes an indirect object (translated as "to ..." or "for ..."); means or agency, especially impersonal means (translated as "by ..."); or a location. It is also frequently used as an object of a preposition, and often, a preposition can take a noun in either the genitive or dative case with different meanings. Examples: In the sentence "I spoke to John", John would be in the dative case. Also, in the sentence "By grace, you have been saved", grace would be in the dative case. The accusative case denotes a direct object. Example: In the sentence, "I saw the cat", cat would be in the accusative case. In Greek, nouns fall under three different patterns for case endings, called declensions. The first declension contains nouns whose stems end in α or η. They are mostly feminine nouns. The second declension contains nouns whose stems end in ο. They are mostly masculine or neuter. The third declension contains all other nouns (mostly, nouns whose stems end in a consonant). There are broad patterns in third declension endings, but many more special cases than for first and second declension nouns. The Definite Article English's sole definite article is 'the.' However, the Greek definite article changes according to gender (this is the same difference between 'la' and 'le' in French and 'el' and 'la' in Spanish), number (this is the 'los' and 'las' of Spanish or the 'les' of French), and case, though it's not influenced by noun declensions. The definite article derives from an old demonstrative system and functions primarily as a marker of definiteness and anaphoric reference (e.g., ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς ἑνὶ αὐτῶν εἶπεν...). Since Greek doesn’t always follow the same word order as modern languages, the article may be used multiple times around the same word, placed after the word it’s connected to to emphasize it, or before or after it with another word like 'δέ' for emphasis. Note that it typically precedes the noun, which may be abstract; marks the beginning of the noun phrase; and is repeated with each coordinated noun when each noun is independently definite. It may even substantivize adjectives into nouns (e.g., ὁ κακός — the evil one). ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ, ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου — until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law (Matthew 5.18). Case Singular Plural Masculine Neuter Feminine Masculine Neuter Feminine Nominative ὁ τό ἡ οἱ τά αἱ Accusative τόν τήν τούς τάς Genitiveτοῦ τῆςτῶν Dative τῷ τῇτοῖς ταῖς Vocativeὦ