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1.2a: The
Behavior of Greek Verbs.
Transitive Verbs with a Direct
Object in the Accusative Case
Greek verbs, just as English verbs, may be classified into two large groups: Linking Verbs and Predicative Verbs. So far we have used only the verb to be, which is highly irregular, in its third person singular: ἐστίν . It is the most common, yet not the only, linking verb: it links or connects subject and predicate. The result is a nominal sentence, "A is B," that could be expressed as an equation: A = B.
We turn our attention now to a few Predicative Verbs. These may be Transitive or Intransitive.
A transitive verb may have a direct object, i.e. someone or something may receive the action expressed by the verb: if the doctor cures, someone is cured by him; if a story teaches, something is being taught by the story, etc. The direct object is not necessarily expressed each time there is a transitive verb. Examples 1) and 2) below do not tell us who is being cured.
An intransitive verb normally does not have a direct object: if a child sleeps, nothing is “being slept.” Occasionally an intransitive verb, used metaphorically, takes a direct object, as in "He lived a beautiful life."
EXAMPLES
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soundfile1.2)
a) ὁ ἰατρὸς θεραπεύει. The doctor cures.
S V
ὁ ἰατρὸς is the SUBJECT, marked as S θεραπεύει is the VERB, marked as V
b) ὁ λόγος διδάσκει. A story teaches.
S V
ὁ λόγος is the SUBJECT διδάσκει is the VERB
c1) ὁ ἰατρὸς θεραπεύει τὸν φίλον. The doctor heals //his//* friend.
S V DIRECT OBJECT
Observations
· TIP: To identify the direct object of a transitive verb, "turn the sentence around": the friend is being healed by the doctor. Later we will call this the passive voice of the verb.
· So now we know who is being healed by the doctor. We can no longer use the form φίλος , just as we cannot say in English that the doctor heals "he." We need a different case of the noun φίλος , that we used in 1.1 as subject or predicate nominative. The ending for the DIRECT OBJECT, often called in English grammar "objective" case or "accusative" case, is known in Greek grammar as ACCUSATIVE. The singular accusative ending of the type of nouns including φίλος is -ον ; the plural accusative ending is -ους . For a chart showing the nominative and the accusative in both numbers, click here.
· The article is used in many of these examples and charts to facilitate learning of the endings. The article has its own endings: click here if you wish to glance at the complete declension of the article. Yet, with the exception of the nominative singular, the endings of the nouns we are learning are the same as those of the article.
c2) ὁ ἰατρὸς οὐ θεραπεύει τὸν φίλον. The doctor does not heal //his// friend.
S V D O
Observations
The simplest formula to negate a verb is to place οὐ or another negative adverb in front of it. No auxiliary verb such as English "do" or "does" is necessary.
d) θεραπεύ-ειν = to heal.
This is not a sentence, but just the (present) infinitive. The ending of this infinitive is -ειν. We will start using the infinitive later. For the time being we will handle only the following variants of Greek verbs: PERSON (1st, 2nd, 3rd), NUMBER (Singular and Plural), and MOOD. Of the MOODS we begin by using the Indicative (which makes a statement) and the Imperative (which utters a command).
Click here to learn the forms of the Present Indicative.
Note: *I mark with a double slash words that are implicit in the Greek text but need to be supplied in the translation. This is an example of a common implication in Greek: if we are not told whose friend the doctor heals, we assume that it is his own, i.e. the subject's.
