Hellenistic Greek © 2009, 2015
Lesson 4: Nouns

Grammatical Discussion

What is a Noun?

A noun is a word that functions like any one of the words in red in the list below.

• Mary opened the door.
• Psychology is Doug's favorite subject.
• The teacher started class with a poem.
• That chair has a broken leg.
• Where is your mother?
• Whose book is that on the table?
• Be careful! Don't break the glass.

As you learn more Greek, you will become very confident in your ability to recognize and understand Greek nouns.

If you want to read a more precise definition the grammatical term, noun, click here.

Grammatical Function, Word Order, and Case

In English we usually determine the grammatical function of a noun by its position in a sentence. For example, we know that “Sarah” is the subject of the sentence, “Sarah called her sister,” because the word “Sarah” comes before the verb “called.” We know that “her sister” is the object of the same sentence since it comes after the verb.

Word order is not a reliable indicator of grammatical function in Greek, however. The subject of a Greek sentence may be at the beginning of the sentence, at the end of the sentence, or even between the verb and its object. The grammatical function of a Greek noun is determined by its case ending—the spelling of the last syllable of the noun.

You will learn to distinguish four “cases” in this lesson—nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. (A fifth case, the vocative case, will be discussed later.) The appropriate endings for these four cases are shown below. You must commit these four pairs of endings to memory! You will not be able to understand Greek without them!

Second Declension Masculine Noun Endings

A declension is a set of nouns, pronouns, or adjectives that share the same set of case endings. The nouns studied in this lesson are traditionally called “second declension” nouns. You will study first declension nouns later. The case endings for the noun λόγος are shown in red in the following chart. Memorize them now.

Based on this chart, identify the case of the noun, θανάτου. Is θανάτου nominative, genitive, dative, or accusative?

Now do the same for λόγους. What case is λόγους?

If you are studying in a classroom setting, your instructor may ask you to state the case and number of any one of the forms listed in the chart above.

Grammatical Number

What is wrong with the following phrase?

We would expect to see “five pens.” The word “five” demands that the word “pen” be given its plural form: “pens.” We use singular forms to speak of a single item: "pen" indicates a single pen. We use plural forms to speak of two or more items: "pens" indicates two or more pens.

Nouns in Hellenistic Greek, as in English, may be given either a plural or singular form. In the list above the singular forms are given in the left column and the plural forms in the right column. When identifying a noun, we refer to this distinction between singular and plural as a distinction in number. If you are asked to give the number of a Greek noun, you need to say whether the noun is singular or plural.

Usual Significance of the Case Forms

As your command of Greek improves, you will realize that each of the case forms has several different functions. For now, however, you should concentrate on learning only the following uses.

Exercise 1: Recognize Masculine Case Forms

Look at the list of masculine case forms above, then click here to practice recognizing and interpreting them.

Grammatical Gender

English uses separate gender forms only with pronouns (he, she, it). When speaking of human beings in English, grammatical gender is normally aligned with the sex of the person indicated. For example, “He went to the bank,” asserts that the person who went to the bank was male, while “She went to the bank,” asserts that the person who went was female. When not referring to humans, English speakers normally (but not always) use “it,” which does not specify gender.

In Greek every noun and pronoun is assigned a specific gender. Even nouns that do not refer to humans may be masculine or feminine. For example, ἄρτος (the Greek word for “bread”) is masculine, even though the object to which it refers is neither male nor female.

Similarly, some words that do refer to humans are assigned neuter gender. For example παιδίον (a Greek word for “child”) is neuter, even though any given child is either male or female. The word κοράσιον (“girl”) is neuter even though it always refers to a female. Gender in Greek is a matter of grammar, not biological sex, even though most words that refer exclusively to males are assigned masculine gender and most words referring exclusively to females are assigned feminine gender.

Several of the nouns presented in this lesson are masculine. Their nominative singular form ends in -ος. See the vocabulary list. Others are neuter. Their nominative singular form ends in -ον.

Second Declension Neuter Noun Endings

Neuter nouns use the endings given below in red:

The genitive and dative endings for neuter second declension nouns are exactly like those of masculine second declension nouns (shown above). The nominative and accusative case forms of any neuter noun are exactly alike.

The Article

Like the nouns discussed above, the article (usually translated as “the” in English) has separate forms for each case, gender, and number. Observe the masculine and neuter forms of the article in the table below and compare them to the endings on the noun forms you just studied.

It is sometimes necessary to leave the article untranslated. In Greek the article may appear with personal names, for example, where it usually may not (in all but a few contexts) in English. Notice the following example:
ὁ Πέτρος (Acts 2:14)
Peter [not “the Peter”]