Greek grammar
Agreement
Articles, adjectives and participles agree with their noun in case, number and gender. Agreement tells you which words belong together.
What agrees with what
- The article: ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ. Τῇ is dative, singular, feminine, like σκοτίᾳ.
- An adjective: νόστιμον ἦμαρ, “the day of return”. Both are accusative, singular, neuter.
- Same agreement, different ending: ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι. A 3rd declension noun and a 2nd declension adjective, both vocative, plural, masculine.
- The article frames its phrase: what stands between an article and its noun belongs to that noun, as in τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, “my accusers”.
- A neuter plural subject usually takes a singular verb: πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, “all things came into being through him”.
In the texts
Real lines from the graded passages, as the reader shows them, with an arc from the word to the one it agrees with.
αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
But he took away their day of return.
Νόστιμον agrees with ἦμαρ: accusative, singular, neuter.
καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The article τῇ agrees with σκοτίᾳ: dative, singular, feminine.
Ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα·
What you, O men of Athens, have suffered from my accusers, I do not know.
Ἀθηναῖοι agrees with ἄνδρες in case, number and gender, with a different ending.
Adjectives to watch
Adjectives from the library’s analysed texts: each page shows the nouns they were read with.