information /
lesson 3 index printable pages
a)
A tip about adjectives
Read
1.3 to refresh what was said in lesson 1 about
adjectives. The following could have been item e) on that page, but we
did not know the neuter yet...
Adjectives
may be used as nouns.
In English this occurs most commonly in the plural, e.g. in "land of the
brave." In Greek, both in the singular and in the plural, using
an adjective with the article changes it into a noun (some prefer to speak of a
substantive use of the adjective). Greek has an advantage over
English here, because by means of the gender of the article and the gender of
the adjective chosen, the implicit "man / men," "woman /
women," or "thing / things" is indicated. Consider these
examples:
ὁ
πονηρός = the evil man
οἱ
σοφοί =
the wise (in English it is clear that a plural is meant)
When
you learn more about these adjectives, you will become familiar with their
neuter ending, identical to the ending of the neuter nouns of the second
declension. Often we need to add, in a literal translation into English,
the word “thing” or things.” So the nominative / accusative neuter
singular τὸ νέον means “a new //thing//, a novelty,” and
the nominative / accusative neuter plural τὰ
καλά means
“beautiful //things//, beauty.”
b)
Adding the neuter article
2.5
presents the declension of the Greek article, but because at that point we had
discussed only masculine nouns, it is only the masculine article that is
included. Articles must agree with the
gender, number, and case of the noun they accompany. So now we need to add the neuter article,
which is different from the masculine only in the nominative, accusative and
vocative.
|
SINGULAR |
PLURAL |
|||||
|
|
masculine |
feminine |
neuter |
masculine |
feminine |
neuter |
|
nom |
ὁ |
|
τό |
οἱ |
|
τά |
|
gen |
τοῦ |
|
τοῦ |
τῶν |
|
τῶν |
|
dat |
τῷ |
|
τῷ |
τοῖς |
|
τοῖς |
|
acc |
τόν |
|
τό |
τούς |
|
τά |