New Testament / Koine Greek, 1st year, Lecture #2: Basics of Biblical Greek, Bill Mounce, chap 5-6

Lecture #2 in New Testament or Koine Greek, covering chapters 5-6 of William Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek. Greek noun inflection and case endings are introduced. The English subjective, objective, and possessive cases, the Greek nominative and accusative cases, stems, masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, paradigms, the Greek article, and the first three noun rules in Bill Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek are covered.

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The English subjective case functions as a subject; the possessive case indicates possession, and the objective case provides the direct object (chapter 5 of BBG). In chapter 6, the way to identifiy first and second declension nouns is specified. Students also learn that nouns have case endings, a suffix added to the end of the word. A noun with the case ending removed is the stem. Nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Most nouns that end in ος are masculine. Words ending with ον are usually neuter. Words ending in η or α are mostly feminine. Different case endings indicate the case (nominative; accusative, etc.), gender (masculine; feminine; neuter), and number (singular; plural) of nouns.

First declension nouns have a stem ending in an alpha or eta. These nouns take first declension endings and are usually feminine. Second declension nouns have a stem ending in omicron. They take second declension endings and are mostly masculine or neuter.

The nominative case indicates the subject of a sentence. A direct object of a verb is in the accusative case. Unlike in English, case endings, not word order, determine what words are subjects and direct objects.

The form of a Greek word in a dictionary or lexicon is called the lexical form, which is the nominative singular form of the word.

Mounce supplies the following paradigm chart for nominative and accusative first and second declension endings:

2 1 2
masc fem neut
nom sg ς - ν
acc sg ν ν ν
nom pl ι ι α
acc pl υς ς α

With stem vowels attached, these endings become:

When attached to the final stem vowel, they look like this.

2 1 2
masc fem neut
nom sg ος η α ον
acc sg ον ην αν ον
nom pl οι αι α
acc pl ους ας α

On specific words, one gets:

2 1 2
masc fem neut
nom sg λόγος γραφη ὥρα ἔργον
acc sg λόγον γραφην ὥραν ἔργον
nom pl λόγοι γραφαί ὧραι ἔργα
acc pl λόγους γραφάς ὥρας ἔργα

The first three noun rules are also learned:

1. Stems ending in alpha or eta are in the first declension, stems ending in omicron are in the second, and consonantal stems are in the third.

2. Every neuter word has the same form in the nominative and accusative.

3. Almost all neuter words end in alpha in the nominative and accusative plural.

Greek does not have an indefinite article, only an "article," which may be called a definite article as well. The article agrees with the noun it modifies in case, number, and gender.

The nominative and accusative forms of the Greek article are as follows:

2 1 2
masc fem neut
nom sg ὁ ἡ τό
acc sg τόν τήν τό
nom pl οἱ αἱ τά
acc pl τούς τάς τά

The noun paradigm with the article attached is as follows:

2 1 2
masc fem neut
nom sg ὁ λόγος ἡ γραφή ἡ ὥρα τό ἔργον
acc sg τόν λόγον τήν γραφήν τήν ὥραν τό ἔργον
nom pl οἱ λόγοι αἱ γραφαί αἱ ὧραι τά ἔργα
acc pl τούς λόγους τάς γραφάς τάς ὥρας τά ἔργα

In Greek, a word that is postpositive cannot be the first word in a Greek sentence or clause; it usually is the second word but on occasion comes third.

Chapter 6 closes by noting that the primary use of the accusative is to indicate the direct object, but some verbs require two objects to complete their meaning (double accusative), and the accusative can also behave as an adverb, modifying the verb (adverbial accusative; accusative of manner or measure).

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