information / gateway1 / syllabus 1/ gateway 2 /  downloads / abbreviations / drills / soundfiles / vocabularies 

lesson 2 index        printable pages

2.2: To or for whom?  Dative case

A transitive, or even an intransitive verb may be accompanied by an Indirect Object, representing who or what receives an advantage or a disadvantage as a result of the action of the verb.  The ending that marks this function in Greek is called Dative.  It is roughly equivalent, therefore, to English "to, for."1 The ending of the Dative singular of nouns of this type is  -ῳ.2   the Dative plural ending is -οις .

EXAMPLE:

ὁ δοῦλος οὐ φέρει σῖτον   τῷ κυρίῳ. 

            S                       V            D O        Indirect Object

The slave does not bring food to / for the master.

Both the article τῷ and the noun  κυρίῳ are in the Dative case.

A sentence with an Indirect Object often includes a Direct Object (A gives a DO to an IO: "My brother gave his master a book", or: "...brought a book for his master."), yet we will use the definition of Indirect Object also when a Direct Object is not explicit or even possible.   Our abbreviation will be I O.

In  English we often mark in the same manner a noun or pronoun, usually denoting someone or something to which the meaning of an adjective applies, e.g. "... beneficial / harmful to children."  A Greek noun, adjective, or pronoun, takes again a Dative ending.

Let us add the endings of the Dative to the declension of   ὁ κύριος

 

singular

plural

   nominative

   ὁ κύρι-ος

      the master

   οἱ κύρι-οι

    the masters, masters

   genitive

   τοῦ κυρί-ου

      of the master, the master's

   τῶν κυρί-ων

   of the masters, the masters'

   dative

   τῷ κυρί-ῳ

      to / for the master

   τοῖς κυρί-οις

    to / for the masters

  accusative

   τὸν κύρι-ον

     the master as D O

   τοὺς κυρί-ους

   the masters as D O

  vocative

coming soon!

coming soon!

Note 1: Warning!  When English to is sometimes equivalent to "towards," it does not mark an English indirect object, e.g. "She went to school."  "To school" would need to be translated into Greek with a prepositional phrase denoting direction, which we have not studied yet

Note 2:  The "iota suscript" under ω in this ending represented what was once the second vowel of a diphthong.   Later  ι  after a long vowel ceased to be pronounced, but the  "iota suscript" continued to be written even as it was ignored in the spoken language.  For us, it will be a useful marker of the dative singular, in this group of nouns and in others.  Do not omit it when you write the Greek words!