Greek grammar
The nominative
ὀνομαστικὴ πτῶσις
The nominative names the subject, the person or thing the verb is about: Βορέας καὶ Ἥλιος ... ἤριζον, “Boreas and Helios were quarrelling”.
What it does
- It names the subject of a verb.
- After εἰμί (be) and γίγνομαι (become), the word that says what the subject is is nominative too: θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
How the article helps
With two nominatives and εἰμί, the one with the article is usually the subject. In θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, ὁ λόγος has the article, so it is the subject: “the Word was God”, not “God was the Word”.
Endings
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | ὁ | ἡ | τό |
| Plural | οἱ | αἱ | τά |
Nouns: -ος, -ον (2nd declension), -η, -α, -ης, -ας (1st), many forms in the 3rd (ἀνήρ, σῶμα); plurals in -οι, -αι, -ες and, for neuters, -α. A neuter’s nominative and accusative are the same.
In the texts
Real lines from the graded passages, as the reader shows them: the nominative stands out in its colour, and an arc joins the word to what it goes with.
Βορέας καὶ Ἥλιος περὶ δυνάμεως ἤριζον·
Boreas and Helios contended concerning their power.
Βορέας and Ἥλιος, joined by καί, are the subject of the plural verb ἤριζον.
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Θεὸς and ὁ λόγος are both nominative. The article marks ὁ λόγος as the subject, and θεός as what the Word was.
Words read in the nominative
Words from the library’s analysed texts, with the forms they took in the nominative.