Conversation and Composition

Eighteen lessons of forms. This one spends them. You will ask questions, describe things, tell a story, and write a paragraph that is yours. Nothing new to memorize except the question words and a handful of joining particles, and most of those you have already seen in passing.

Speak everything in this lesson aloud. Restored Attic is a scholarly model, a careful reconstruction from ancient spelling, grammarians and loanwords (lesson 2), and nobody alive grew up speaking it. That does not make speaking it pointless. Saying the forms out loud gets them into your mouth and ear, which is where reading speed comes from.

Asking who and what: τίς, τί

τίς [TIS] means "who?" and τί [TI] means "what?" or "why?" They are third declension (lesson 14), and the masculine and feminine share one set of forms.

The short forms τοῦ and τῷ for τίνος and τίνι are common in Attic (Smyth, section 334). The interrogative always keeps the acute on its first syllable, even before another word, where an acute on the last syllable would normally turn grave. That is how you know it is a question word.

The indefinite τις, τι means "someone, something, a certain, any." It has the same forms, but it is enclitic (Smyth, section 181): it leans on the word before it and usually has no accent of its own, or carries it on the last syllable when it does. γεωργός τις is "a certain farmer." λέγει τις is "someone is speaking."

Notice ἦλθέ τις: when an enclitic follows a word accented on the third-to-last or with a circumflex on the next-to-last, that word picks up a second accent on its last syllable. Lesson 3 gave the rule. You will see it constantly with τις and with the enclitic forms of εἰμί.

The Greek question mark is the mark that looks like an English semicolon: ;. Greek's own semicolon is a raised dot, ·. Lesson 3 covered both. When you write questions by hand, do not write an English question mark.

Where, when, how: the question family

Greek question words come in sets. Each has a direct form for questions (accented, usually starting with π-), an indefinite form (enclitic), a relative form for clauses (starting with ὁ-), and a pointing form for answers. You do not need all four columns today, but seeing them together saves time later.

The indefinite adverbs που, ποι, ποθεν, ποτε, πως are enclitic. The indefinite adjectives ποσός and ποιός are not; they are simply accented on the last syllable instead of the first.

Greek keeps "where at," "where to" and "where from" strictly apart. English used to do this too, with where, whither and whence. If someone asks ποῦ εἶ; ("where are you?") the answer is a place. If they ask ποῖ βαδίζεις; ("where are you walking to?") the answer is a destination, usually εἰς or πρός plus the accusative (lesson 11). If they ask πόθεν ἥκεις; ("where have you come from?") the answer uses ἐκ, ἀπό or παρά plus the genitive.

Yes or no questions

A question with no question word can be marked just by tone and the question mark: ἥκει ὁ διδάσκαλος; "Has the teacher come?" Greek also has particles that frame the question and show what answer the speaker expects.

Keep ἆρα (with a circumflex and a long first vowel) apart from ἄρα (acute, short), which means "so, then, as it turns out." Lesson 4 gave the short answers: ναί "yes," οὔ "no," and you can add more natural ones now. Greek often answers by repeating the verb: ἥκει; ἥκει. "Has he come? He has." Or with an adverb: πάνυ γε "certainly," μάλιστα "very much so," οὐδαμῶς "not at all." Plato's dialogues are full of these, and they are a cheap way to sound fluent.

Describing people and places

Description is εἰμί plus adjectives, plus a genitive or two. All of it is from lessons 6 to 10. A few patterns that make descriptions sound Greek instead of word-for-word English:

• Leave out ἐστί. Greek often drops "is" in short statements: καλὴ ἡ οἰκία. "The house (is) beautiful." The article on the noun and not on the adjective shows this is a predicate (lesson 10).
• The genitive of possession. ἡ οἰκία τοῦ γεωργοῦ. "The farmer's house."
• ἔστι(ν) at the start means "there is." ἔστι κρήνη ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ. "There is a spring in the field." When ἔστι means "there is" or "it is possible," it is written with the accent on the first syllable.
• The dative of possession. ἔστι μοι κύων. "I have a dog," literally "there is a dog to me."
• Adjectives of size and age. μέγας, μεγάλη, μέγα big; μικρός small; νέος young, new; παλαιός old (of things); γέρων, γέροντος, ὁ an old man.

Telling a story

A story leans on the aorist for events and the imperfect for background, and it needs particles to join one sentence to the next. Greek prose very rarely lets two sentences sit side by side without a connecting word. English does not mind; Greek does.

The two past tenses doing their jobs

Lesson 13 compared the aorist to a snapshot and the imperfect to film. In a story, the imperfect paints the scene and the aorist moves the plot.

• ἔλαμπε μὲν ὁ ἥλιος, ἔπαιζον δὲ οἱ παῖδες ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ. "The sun was shining, and the children were playing in the street." (background, imperfect)
• ἐξαίφνης δὲ ἵππος τις ἔδραμε διὰ τῆς ὁδοῦ. "Suddenly a horse ran down the street." (event, aorist ἔδραμον, from τρέχω)

Joining words

"Second word" means postpositive: δέ, γάρ, οὖν and μέν never come first in their clause. ὁ δέ ("and he") and οἱ δέ ("and they") are the standard way to switch subject in a story, using the article as a pronoun (lesson 7). Xenophon's Anabasis is built out of them.

Participles keep stories moving

Lesson 16 gave you the circumstantial participle. Greek storytellers use it to fold two events into one sentence, keeping the main verb for the more important one. Where English says "He saw the horse and ran after it," Greek prefers ἰδὼν τὸν ἵππον ἐδίωκεν, "having seen the horse, he chased it." The aorist participle ἰδών marks the first event as done before the second. Aim for one participle per sentence in your own writing and your Greek will start to sound like Greek.

A guided composition

Now you write. The plan below gives you the content in English and the key Greek words. Write each sentence in Greek, then read the whole thing aloud. Do not look at the model until you have a full draft. A wrong ending you catch yourself teaches more than a right one you copy.

Plan: "The Lost Book"

1. A young man named Lysis lives in the city. (νεανίας, -ου, ὁ, young man; ὀνόματι; ἐν τῇ πόλει)
2. He loves books and reads every day. (φιλέω; βιβλίον; ἀναγιγνώσκω; ἑκάστης ἡμέρας)
3. One day he cannot find his favorite book. (ἡμέρᾳ τινί; δύναμαι; εὑρεῖν; τὸ φίλτατον βιβλίον)
4. He asks his sister: "Where is my book?" (ἐρωτάω, aorist ἠρώτησε; ἡ ἀδελφή; ποῦ)
5. She answers that she does not know. (ἀποκρίνεται; οὐκ οἶδα, or indirect: φησὶν οὐκ εἰδέναι)
6. They search the whole house. (ζητέω; ὅλην τὴν οἰκίαν)
7. Finally the dog is found lying on the book. (τέλος; ὁ κύων; κείμενος ἐπὶ τοῦ βιβλίου; ηὑρέθη, it was found)
8. Lysis laughs and says: "Even the dog loves books." (γελάω, aorist ἐγέλασε; καὶ ὁ κύων)