Adjectives and Pronouns

You already know nearly every ending in this lesson. Greek adjectives borrow the noun endings from lessons 5 and 6, and the pronouns mostly copy the article from lesson 7. The new skill is placement. In Greek, moving one adjective two words to the left turns "the just man" into "the man is just."

Adjectives: the 2-1-2 pattern

An adjective describes a noun. In Greek it agrees with its noun in gender, number and case, so it needs a full set of forms for each gender. The largest family of adjectives uses second declension endings for the masculine (like λόγος), first declension endings for the feminine (like τιμή or χώρα), and second declension endings for the neuter (like δῶρον). Teachers call these 2-1-2 adjectives, after the declensions they use in the order masculine, feminine, neuter.

A dictionary lists them by the three nominative singulars: ἀγαθός, -ή, -όν. That tells you everything.

ἀγαθός, ἀγαθή, ἀγαθόν, "good"

After most consonants, the feminine has η in the singular, like τιμή. The forms below follow Smyth, section 287.

Guide: ἀγαθός [a-ga-THOS], ἀγαθή [a-ga-THĒ], ἀγαθόν [a-ga-THON]. The accent sits on the last syllable and stays there, acute or circumflex depending on the ending. In a phrase, the acute forms turn grave: ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἵππος.

δίκαιος, δικαία, δίκαιον, "just"

When the stem ends in ε, ι or ρ, the feminine keeps a long α all through the singular, the way χώρα does. δίκαιος [DI-kai-os] ends its stem in ι, so its feminine is δικαία [di-KAI-ā].

Watch the accent. In the masculine nominative δίκαιος it sits on the third syllable from the end, and like a noun's accent it is persistent: it stays there as long as the rules allow. When the ending is long (-ου, -ῳ, -ων, -οις, -ους, and the long -α- of the feminine singular), the accent must move one syllable closer: δικαίου, δικαία. Two details trip people up:

• Feminine nominative plural δίκαιαι. Final -αι counts as short for accent, so the accent can go back to δί-.
• Feminine genitive plural δικαίων. A first declension noun would pull the accent to the ending (χωρῶν). Adjectives do not: Smyth notes that the feminine nominative and genitive plural follow the masculine (section 287a). So δικαίων, not δικαιῶν.

Other adjectives of this type: φίλιος, -α, -ον friendly; ἐλεύθερος, -α, -ον [e-LEU-the-ros] free; μικρός, -ά, -όν [mī-KROS] small; ἄξιος, -α, -ον [AK-si-os] worthy. Of the ἀγαθός type: καλός, -ή, -όν beautiful, fine; κακός, -ή, -όν [ka-KOS] bad; σοφός, -ή, -όν [so-PHOS] wise; δῆλος, -η, -ον [DĒ-los] clear, obvious.

Agreement does not mean rhyming

Lesson 7 showed that the article agrees with its noun's gender, not its spelling. The same goes for adjectives. ἡ ὁδός is feminine, so "the long road" is ἡ μακρὰ ὁδός, with a feminine adjective sitting next to an -ος noun. "The good citizen" is ὁ ἀγαθὸς πολίτης, a masculine -ος adjective next to a noun ending in -ης. Match the grammar, not the letters.

Attributive and predicate position

This is the most important idea in the lesson. Greek tells you whether an adjective describes a noun or makes a statement about it by where the adjective sits relative to the article.

Attributive position: the adjective is inside the article group. It describes the noun, as in English "the good horse." Smyth section 1154 gives the possible orders.

Predicate position: the adjective is outside the article group. It makes a claim, as in "the horse is good." No verb is needed, though ἐστί often appears. Smyth section 1168.

The rule of thumb: look at the adjective. Does an article sit immediately before it? Then it is attributive. Does it stand bare, with the article attached only to the noun? Then it is predicate.

Without any article, context decides: ἀγαθὸς ἵππος can be "a good horse" or "a horse is good." Inside a longer sentence with another verb, it is almost always "a good horse."

Adjectives used as nouns

With the article, an adjective can stand alone as a noun. The gender tells you what to supply.

• ὁ σοφός "the wise man"; οἱ σοφοί "the wise," "wise people"
• ἡ σοφή "the wise woman"
• τὸ δίκαιον "justice," "what is just"; τὰ καλά "fine things," "beauty"
• οἱ ἀγαθοί "good men," and in politics often "the upper class," depending on who is talking

Personal pronouns: ἐγώ and σύ

A pronoun stands in for a noun. Greek verbs already include the subject (λέγω is "I say"), so the nominative pronouns ἐγώ "I" and σύ "you" appear only for emphasis or contrast. The other cases are needed all the time. Forms from Smyth section 325.

In the singular there are two sets. The short forms μου, μοι, με, σου, σοι, σε are enclitic and unemphatic: δός μοι τὸ βιβλίον, "give me the book" (δός "give!"). The longer or accented forms are emphatic, used for contrast and after most prepositions: οὐκ ἐμοί, ἀλλὰ σοί, "not to me, but to you." Smyth gives both examples in section 325a.

Two traps for English speakers:

• σύ is always singular. Ancient Greek never used the plural "you" to be polite to one person (Smyth 325c). A slave says σύ to a king. If a text says ὑμεῖς, more than one person is being addressed.
• ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς differ by one breathing. ἡμ- has a rough breathing on η; ὑμ- has a rough breathing on υ. Say them carefully: hē-MĒS "we," hü-MĒS "you all." Medieval manuscripts often confuse the two, because by Byzantine times η and υ had both come to be pronounced like the ee in "see," as they still are in modern Greek.

You already know one of these. τί ὄνομά σοι; from lesson 4 is literally "what name to you?", with the enclitic dative σοι. And the answer ὄνομά μοι ... is "name to me ..."

"My," "your," "our"

Use the genitive. The unemphatic genitive goes after the noun and its article, outside the group: ὁ φίλος μου [ho PHI-los moo] "my friend," ἡ οἰκία σου "your house," ὁ διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν "our teacher." Greek also has possessive adjectives, ἐμός, -ή, -όν "my" and σός, σή, σόν "your," which go inside: ὁ ἐμὸς φίλος "my friend." Smyth 1196 sets out both patterns.

αὐτός: three words in one

αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό [au-TOS, au-TĒ, au-TO] declines like ἀγαθός, except that the neuter nominative and accusative singular is αὐτό, with no -ν (Smyth 327). The Dickinson College core vocabulary ranks it the second most common word in Greek, after the article. It has three distinct jobs, and position tells you which (Smyth 328, 1206 to 1210).

Smyth is clear that the third use never appears in the nominative. Greek has no plain word for "he, she, it" as a subject: the verb ending covers it, and when emphasis is needed, writers use ἐκεῖνος or οὗτος (Smyth 325d). So αὐτός in the nominative is always "self" or "same," never just "he."

The third use is how Greek says "his, her, its, their" when it means someone other than the subject: ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ "his brother," ἡ ἀδελφὴ αὐτῆς "her sister," οἱ ἵπποι αὐτῶν "their horses." The genitive goes outside the article group, like μου.

Demonstratives: οὗτος "this" and ἐκεῖνος "that"

A demonstrative points. οὗτος [HOO-tos] means "this," the thing near the speaker or just mentioned. ἐκεῖνος [e-KĒ-nos] means "that," something farther off or mentioned earlier. Both work as adjectives with a noun or as pronouns alone. Forms from Smyth 333.

οὗτος, αὕτη, τοῦτο

This looks chaotic and is not. Smyth's tip (333b): οὗτος has the rough breathing and the τ in exactly the same places as the article. Where the article has ο or ω in its ending, οὗτος has ου in the stem (τούτου, τούτων). Where the article has α or η, οὗτος has αυ (ταύτης, ταῦτα). Compare ὁ / οὗτος, ἡ / αὕτη, τό / τοῦτο, οἱ / οὗτοι, αἱ / αὗται, τά / ταῦτα.

Guide to the nominatives: οὗτος [HOO-tos], αὕτη [HAU-tē], τοῦτο [TOO-to], οὗτοι [HOO-toi], αὗται [HAU-tai], ταῦτα [TAU-ta].

ἐκεῖνος, ἐκείνη, ἐκεῖνο

This one is easy: 2-1-2 endings on the stem ἐκειν-, with the neuter singular ἐκεῖνο, no -ν, like αὐτό.

Where demonstratives go

With a noun, the demonstrative takes the article on the noun and stands outside it, in predicate position (Smyth 1176). Never between the article and noun.

• οὗτος ὁ ἵππος or ὁ ἵππος οὗτος "this horse" (never ὁ οὗτος ἵππος)
• αὕτη ἡ ὁδός or ἡ ὁδὸς αὕτη "this road" (feminine, to match ὁδός)
• ἐκεῖνο τὸ δῶρον "that gift"
• ταῦτα τὰ βιβλία "these books"

English says "this horse" with no "the." Greek needs the article. Translating, drop it.

Alone, the demonstratives are strong pronouns: οὗτος "this man, he," αὕτη "this woman, she," ταῦτα "these things, this." ταῦτα λέγει is "he says this" or "he says these things." ἐκεῖνος "that man, he" often points back to someone mentioned earlier in a story.

New words for this lesson