lesson 9 index printable pages
9.2b: What about the 3rd person?
THE THIRD PERSON PRONOUN: Warning! Not in the Nominative...
When we started learning the conjugation of verbs, I introduced the personal pronouns of the first and second persons, but for the third used a demonstrative (ἐκεῖνος, ἐκείνη, ἐκεῖνο = "that one" ) to serve as "he, she, it." The reason is that the Nominative αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό, especially in Classical Greek, is intensive or emphatic. This will be studied in the second semester (12.2). For that reason in this chart only the so-called "oblique" cases (cases other than the nominative) are listed.
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third person singular |
|||
|
|
masculine |
feminine |
neuter |
|
nom |
use a demonstrative |
||
|
gen |
αὐτοῦ of him, his |
αὐτῆς of her, hers |
αὐτοῦ of it, its |
|
dat |
αὐτῷ to/for him ( I O ) |
αὐτῇ to/for her (I O) |
αὐτῷ to/for it ( I O) |
|
acc |
αὐτόν him (D O) |
αὐτήν her (D O) |
αὐτό it (D O) |
|
third person plural |
|||
|
|
masculine |
feminine |
neuter |
|
nom |
use a demonstrative |
||
|
gen |
αὐτῶν of them, their |
||
|
dat |
αὐτοῖς to/for them ( I O ) |
αὐταῖς to/for them (I O) |
αὐτοῖς to/for them ( I O ) |
|
acc |
αὐτούς them (D O) |
αὐτάς them (D O) |
αὐτά them (D O) |
αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό, standing by itself in the nominative, especially in Classical Greek, is intensive or emphatic. To recognize easily the intensive pronoun in English, compare "Do it yourself."
EXAMPLE
αὐτὸς σώσει τὸν κόσμον ἐκ τῆς ἁμαρτίας·1 πιστεύσουσι γὰρ αὐτῷ2 οἱ ὄχλοι.
S V D O ἐκ + gen V I O S
ὁ δὲ ὠνόμαζεν αὐτοὺς τὰ πρόβατα αὐτοῦ.
S V D O pred acc gen
He will save the world from sin, for the crowds will believe in him. He called them "the flock of him" = his flock.
Notes
1) ἀμαρτία = "error" in classical Greek, "sin" in koinê
2) πιστεύω = to believe in, may take the dative or (in koinê) εἰς + accusative.