Introductory Ancient Greek Language/Lesson 3

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[edit] What is a Definite Article?

The definite article we use in English is the word 'the' and its the only one we have. Ancient Greek has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The definite article will change accordingly. For those who have some background in Spanish or French this is the same difference between 'la' and 'le' in French and 'el' and 'la' in Spanish. We do not have this distinction in English.

Also unlike English, Greek differentiates between plural and singular. For, the comparison this is the 'los' and 'las' of Spanish or the 'les' of French.

Unlike most modern languages ancient Greek also has cases, and the definite article reflects this.

[edit] Cases

Greek has five cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative. Some of you taking this lesson may know what these words mean, but most probably won't. In English we use word order and helping words to understand what ancient Greek conveys with cases.

Nominative and Accusative

For, example take the sentence [The dog bites a cat.] In this sentence we understand that the dog is the subject doing the biting, while the cat is the direct object being bitten. In Greek the subject would be in the nominative case and the direct object in the accusative.

Because these cases explain to the reader what's happening in the sentence you can have a sentence structure in Greek such as [Cat bites dog.] which actually means that the dog bites the cat. This may be a little confusing, but this is just an introduction and it will make more sense when you see it in the actual Greek.

Dative

Words usually take the dative if they are indirect objects. In English we typically use the word 'with' to understand this. So, the sentence [The dog bites a cat with teeth.] would have 'dog' in the nominative since its the subject of the verb, 'cat' would be accusative since its the object, and 'teeth' would be dative.

Genitive

The genitive case primarily denotes belonging. We have some examples of the genitive case in English. This is the difference we find between the first person pronouns me and my. The sentence [Achilles' spear is bright] would have 'Achilles' in the genitive and 'spear' in nominative.

Vocative

Finally there is the vocative case which is only used when directly speaking to someone. Since ancient Greek is only used in the translation of texts you will rarely find this form. Examples would be in plays where a character addresses another.

[edit] The Definite Article Table

Singular

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	ὁ	ἡ	τό
Genitive	τοῦ	τῆς	τοῦ
Dative	τῷ	τῇ	τῷ
Accusative	τόν	τήν	τό
Vocative	ὦ	ὦ	ὦ

Plural

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	οἱ	αἱ	τά
Genitive	τῶν	τῶν	τῶν
Dative	τοῖς	ταῖς	τοῖς
Accusative	τούς	τᾱς	τά
Vocative	ὦ	ὦ	ὦ