In Ancient Greek, all nouns are classified according to grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and are used in a number (singular, dual, or plural). According to their function in a sentence, their form changes to one of the five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, or dative). The set of forms that a noun will take for each case and number is determined by the declension that it follows.
Cases The five cases of Ancient Greek each have different functions.
Nominative The Ancient Greek nominative, like the Proto-Indo-European nominative, is used for the subject and for things describing the subject (predicate nouns or adjectives): Aristotle, Rhetoric 1357b.10
"For Socrates was wise and just."
Vocative The vocative is used for addressing people or things. It is frequently the same as the nominative in the singular and always the same in the plural. Plato, Ion 530c
"What you say is true, Socrates."
Accusative The accusative is used for the object of a verb, and also after prepositions. After prepositions it is often used for the destination of motion: Herodotus, 4.151.2
"They send messengers to Crete."
Genitive The Ancient Greek genitive can often be translated with the preposition "of" or the English possessive case: Josephus, The Life of Flavius Josephus 429
"The wife of Caesar."
It is also used after prepositions, especially those which mean "from": Aeschines, 1.61
"He went away from the market-place."
Dative The Ancient Greek dative corresponds to the Proto-Indo-European dative, instrumental, or locative. When it corresponds to the dative, it expresses the person or thing that is indirectly affected by an action, and can often be translated with the prepositions "to" or "for": Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1.7
"He tells the oracle to Socrates."
When the dative corresponds to the Proto-Indo-European instrumental, it expresses the thing with which something is done, and can often be translated by the preposition "with": Lysias, 3.8
"He was hitting me with stones."
When the dative corresponds to the Proto-Indo-European locative case (this is often the case when it is used with prepositions), it expresses location (sometimes figuratively) or time, and can often be translated by "in", "at", or "on": Thucydides, 1.101.3
"In the third year they came to an agreement with the Athenians."
The dative is also frequently used after prepositions, such as () "in": Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.3.3
"He died in the battle."
Declension + declension,meaning number strong cases:nominative, accusative weak cases:genitive, dative first declension: second declension: third declension:
Accent of strong and weak cases For first- and second-declension nouns accented on the ultima and third-declension nouns with a single-syllable stem, the strong cases (nominative and accusative) have one type of accent, and the weak cases (genitive and dative) have another.
Specifically, the first- and second-declension nouns have acute (´) in the strong cases, but circumflex (ˆ) in the weak cases. Third-declension nouns have the accent on the stem in the strong cases, but the ending in the weak cases.
Both of these patterns can be summarized by a single rule suggested by Paul Kiparsky: pre-ending accent in the strong cases and post-stem accent in the weak cases.
For first- and second-declension nouns, Kiparsky's rule is more complex. The thematic vowel ( or ) counts as neither stem nor ending, but alternates between the two depending on which accent is considered. For post-stem accent, it counts as part of the ending; for pre-ending accent, it counts as part of the stem.
Greek definite article "the" singular dual plural nominative accusative genitive dative
First declension
The first declension or alpha declension is considered thematic, with long alpha () at the end of the stem, though it is derived from original athematic Indo-European forms. In Attic Greek, this changes to everywhere except after or . The first declension includes mostly feminine nouns, but also a few masculine nouns, including agent nouns in , patronyms in , and demonyms.
The first-declension genitive plural always takes a circumflex on the last syllable. In Homeric Greek the ending was or (through shortening from *). was contracted to in Attic.
Feminine long a-stem feminine: "country" "goddess" "house" "voice" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Feminine short a-stem Some nouns have short in the nominative, vocative and accusative singular, but are otherwise identical to other feminine first-declension nouns. They are recessively accented, i.e. the accent retreats as far left as the rules of Greek accentuation allow.
Most nouns in this category were formed with the suffix (sometimes written ). The (representing the semivowel ) undergoes one of several sound changes with the consonant at the end of the stem: > , Attic "tongue" (palatalization; compare "point") > "portion" (metathesis; compare ) > "bridge" (compensatory lengthening of after loss of ) PIE > Proto-Greek > > Attic Greek "truth" (assimilation of to ; compare "something true")
feminine: ()"truth" ()"tongue" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Masculine a-stem Masculine first-declension nouns end in or in Attic. Homer retains the older masculine ending and uses "sailor" instead of or : compare Latin .
The masculine genitive singular ending comes from the second declension. Homeric Greek uses or .
masculine: "young man" "creative artist" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Second declension
The second or omicron declension is thematic, with an or at the end of the stem. It includes one class of masculine and feminine nouns and one class of neuter nouns.
When a second-declension noun is accented on the ultima, the accent switches between acute for the nominative, accusative, and vocative, and circumflex for the genitive and dative. The only exceptions are Attic-declension and contracted nouns.
Masculine and feminine o-stems Masculine and feminine both end in , and can only be distinguished by an article or adjective.
masculine: feminine: "person" "way" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Neuter o-stems In the neuter, the nominative, vocative and accusative are the same, with a singular in and plural in . Other forms are identical to the masculine and feminine second declension.
neuter: "gift" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Attic declension
In the Attic dialect, some masculine second-declension nouns and some adjectives have endings with lengthened vowels. Some nouns in this category end in , which developed from an original * by the process of quantitative metathesis (switching of vowel lengths). All second-declension endings containing were transformed: → →
The placement of the accent does not change, even when the ultima is long, and all forms take an acute instead of a circumflex.
In these nouns, the nominative singular, vocative singular, and accusative plural are identical, as are the accusative singular and genitive plural, and the dative singular and nominative and vocative plural.
masculine "people" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Contracted second declension In Attic, nouns and adjectives ending in or and or are contracted so that they end in and .
When the ultima is accented, it takes a circumflex in all forms, including the nominative, accusative, and vocative.
masculine "mind" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Third declension The third declension group includes masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. It is an athematic declension that lacks the standard thematic vowels of the two thematic declensions above. This results in varied and often complex phonemic interactions between stem and ending, especially so between adjacent consonants, that often make these nouns appear to be highly irregular compared to their straightforward thematic counterparts.
These nouns in the nominative singular end with the vowels or with the consonants (). They form the genitive case with or .
Third-declension nouns have one, two, or three stems, unlike first- and second-declension nouns, which always have only one stem. Each stem is used in different case-and-number forms. In nouns with two stems, the stem with the long vowel is called the strong stem, while the stem with the short vowel is called the weak stem. The strong stem is found at the nominative singular, and the weak stem in the genitive singular. (long vowel, strong stem: nominative singular) (short vowel, weak stem: genitive singular)
Endings The masculine and feminine nominative singular ordinarily ends in , but has no ending in some nouns whose stems end in and , and all nouns in (from *), (from *), (from *), . The neuter nominative, accusative, and vocative singular always has no ending.
The of the accusative singular and plural was originally a syllabic ν. The accusative singular ending appears after Proto-Greek consonants, and is much more common than , because almost all third-declension stems end in a consonant. When a Proto-Greek consonant was lost (ϝ, , ), appears after a vowel, and may be lengthened to : . The ending appears after the vowels and : . The ending always changes to , except in the accusative plural of , where it lengthens the preceding by compensatory lengthening, yielding .
A peculiar subset of this declension is used when declining foreign masculine names such as : the nominative takes a sigma, the genitive and vocative are the bare stem, the dative may receive an iota subscript if possible, the accusative receives a nu. However, other nouns in which the cluster arising with the sigma at nominative would be un-Greek (e.g. ) are instead kept undeclined. singulardualplural masculine/feminine neutermasculine/ feminineneuter nominative _ —_ -ε vocative —_, accusative genitive dative Consonant-stems These nouns end in (). Based on the last letter of the stem, they are divided into two categories:
The mute-stem nouns have stems ending in (velar-stem nouns), (labial-stem nouns), (dental-stem nouns).
The semi mute-stem nouns have stems ending in (nasal-stem nouns), (liquid-stem nouns), (sibilant-stem nouns).
Nominative singular and dative plural cause pronunciation or spelling changes, depending on the consonant at the end of the stem. consonantat end ofstem nominativesingular,dativeplural (dental) () velar labial
Velar- and labial-stems In the nominative singular and dative plural, the velars combined with are written as , and the labials combined with are written as .
"raven" "vulture" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Dental- and nasal-stems
Stems in t In the nominative singular and dative plural, a dental before is lost: , not . "rug" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
If a noun is not accented on the last syllable and ends in , or , it often has an accusative singular in and a vocative with no ending.
(accusative) (vocative)
Single-stems in nt In the nominative singular and dative plural, before is lost, and the previous vowel is lengthened by compensatory lengthening. In the vocative singular, final is lost, as Ancient Greek words cannot end in stops. "giant" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
When a noun is accented on the last syllable, the vocative singular is identical to the nominative: "leather strap" (vocative)
Double-stems in nt These nouns have a weak stem in and a strong stem in . The strong stem is used only in the nominative singular. The vocative singular is the weak stem without an ending. In both the nominative and vocative singular, the final disappears. In the dative plural, the in the ending causes the to disappear, and the is lengthened to by compensatory lengthening. "old man" nominative vocative accusative genitive dative
Stems in at