Greek grammar
The vocative
κλητικὴ πτῶσις
The vocative names the person spoken to, often after ὦ: ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, “men of Athens”. It stands outside the sentence and takes no article.
How it differs from the nominative
- In the plural, never: ἄνδρες.
- 2nd declension nouns in -ος end in -ε: ἄνθρωπε, Κῦρε.
- Many 3rd declension nouns shorten: θυγάτηρ, θύγατερ; πατήρ, πάτερ; Σωκράτης, Σώκρατες.
- 1st declension nouns mostly keep the nominative’s form: θεά, μοῦσα.
In the texts
Real lines from the graded passages, as the reader shows them: the vocative stands out in its colour, and an arc joins the word to what it goes with.
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.
Ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι: Socrates addresses the jury. Ἀθηναῖοι agrees with ἄνδρες.
τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.
From some source, goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell us too.
Θύγατερ is θυγάτηρ shortened in address; θεά keeps the nominative’s form.
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν·
Tell me, O Muse, of the much-traveled man, who wandered very much, after he sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
Μοῦσα, between commas, is the Muse the poet calls on.
Words read in the vocative
Words from the library’s analysed texts, with the forms they took in the vocative.