Greek Grammar in Greek
                                                  William S. Annis
                                                  Scholiastae.org∗
                                                  February 5, 2012
                  Sometimes it would be nice to discuss grammar without having to drop back to our native
              language, so I’ve made a collection of Greek grammatical vocabulary. My primary source is E.
              Dickey’s Ancient Greek Scholarship. Over more than a millennium of literary scholarship in the
              ancient world has resulted in a vast and somewhat redundant vocabulary for many corners of
              grammar. Since my goal is to make it possible to produce Greek rather than to provide a guide to
              ancient scholarship — for which Dickey’s book is the best guide — Ihave left out a lot of duplicate
              terminology. In general I tried to pick the word that appears to inspire the Latin, and thus the
              modern, grammatical vocabulary. Ialso occasionally checked to see what Modern Greek uses for
              a term.
              Parts of Speech
              The Greeks divided up the parts of speech a little differently, but for the most part we’ve inherited
              their division.
                  • μέρος λόγου “part of speech”
                  • ὄνομα, τό “noun”
                  • ἐπίθετον “adjective” (in ancient grammar considered a kind of noun)
                  • ῥῆμα, τό “verb”
                  • μετοχή, ἡ “participle” (which we now think of as part of the verb)
                  • ἄρθρον, τό “article” and also relative pronoun in the scholia
                  • ἀντωνυμία, ἡ “pronoun”
                       – ἀναφορική “relative”
                       – δεικτική “demonstrative”
                       – κτητική “possessive,” i.e., ἐμός, σός, κτλ.
                  • πρόθεσις, ἡ “preposition”
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        • ἐπίρρημα, τό “adverb” but also covering some particles in the scholia
        • σύνδεσμος, ὁ “conjunction” but, again, also covering some particles in the scholia
        There was no classical word that matched the contemporary notion of a particle, which were
       described by their function as either σύνδεσμοι or ἐπιρρήματα. The Puristic word for a particle is
       τὸ μόριον, which seems as good a choice as any, with the warning that in ancient grammarians
       sometimes the word is used to describe a part of speech (a variant of μέρος.)
       Phonology
        • λέξις, ἡ “word” (in grammatical texts λόγος means many things, but it doesn’t usually mean
         “word”)
        • συλλαβή, ἡ “syllable”
        • στοιχεῖον, τό “sound/letter”
        • φωνῆεν (-ήεντος) “vowel”
        • σύμφωνον “consonant”
       Vowels may be:
        • μακρόν “long” (μηκύνω “lengthen;” μηκύνομαι “be (scanned, used as a) long”)
        • βραχύ “short” (βραχύνω “shorten;” βραχύνομαι “be (scanned, used as a) short”)
        • κοινόν (δίχρονον) “common,” that is, it can be either long or short
       Further a vowel may have:
        • πνεύματα “breathings”
        • δασέα “rough” (δασύνω “to aspirate; to write with a rough breathing or aspirated conso-
         nant”)
        • ψιλά “smooth” (ψιλόω “write/pronounce with a smooth breathing or unaspirated conso-
         nant”)
       There’s an extensive taxonomy for consonants. The most important words are:
        • ψιλόν “bare” or unaspirated stops (π, τ, κ)
        • δασύ “aspirated” (lit., “hairy”) stops (φ, θ, χ)
        • μέσον “voiced” (lit., “middle”) stops (β, δ, γ)
       The many marks of aspiration, accent and punctuation together are called αἱ προσῳδίαι:
        • τόνοι, οἱ “accents;” verb τονόω “to accent,” οὐκ ὀρθῶς τονοῦται, “(it is) not accented cor-
         rectly.”
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        • syllables having an acute accent, ὀξεῖα (προσῳδία), are ὀξύτονος or, as a verb, ὀξύνειν; also
         describes words with an acute in the final syallable
        • paroxytone words (penult acute) are παροξύτονος, verb παροξύνειν
        • proparoxytone (antepenult acute) are προπαροξύτονος, verb προπαροξύνειν
        • words with a circumflex accent, περισπωμένη, are περισπομένος, verb περισπᾶν
        • penult circumflex are προπερισπώμενος, verb προπερισπᾶν
        • unaccented syllables are βαρύτονος, verb βαρύνειν
       Other useful words:
        • Contraction is ἡ συναίρεσις, verb συναιρέω. Vowel changes may occur κατὰ συναίρεσιν, as
         in, ἀπὸ “τῆς Σαπφόος” γίγνεται κατὰ συναίρεσιν “Σαπφοῦς.”
        • Crasis is ἡ κρᾶσις. Changes happen κατὰ κρᾶσιν, “by crasis,” as in κατὰ κρᾶσιν δέ, ὡς “τἀμά”
         ἀντὶ τοῦ “τὰ ἐμά.”
       Nouns and Adjectives
        • γένος, τό “gender”
          – ἄρρεν “masculine” (also ἀρρενικόν, with the usual Ionic/Koine variation in ἀρσεν- for
           both)
          – θηλύ “feminine” (also θηλυκόν)
          – οὐδέτερον “neuter”
        • ἀριθμός, ὁ “number”
          – ἑνικός “singular”
          – δυϊκός “dual”
          – πληθυντικός “plural”
        • πτῶσις, ἡ “case”
          – εὐθεῖα “nominative” (also, ὀρθή)
          – γενική “genitive”
          – δοτική “dative”
          – αἰτιατική “accusative”
          – κλητική “vocative”
          – ἀπενεκτική “ablative” (in case you want to discuss Latin grammar)
        • κλίνειν “to decline” a noun
          – κλίσις, ἡ “declension”
        • syntactic roles (from ἐνεργέω “to act”):
          – ὁ ἐνεργῶν “the subject”
          – ὁ ἐνεργούμενος “the object”
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        For a noun “in” a case, use ἐπί + gen., παροξύνει καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς αἰτιατικῆς, “it is paroxytone also
       in the accusative.”
        The gender of a noun is described with the genitive or with κατὰ + acc., as in ἔστι δὲ τὸ
       “ἀμφόδου” ἐνταῦθα γένους οὐδετέρου· εὕρηται ὅμως καὶ κατὰ θηλυκὸν, “ἀμφόδου here is (of)
       neuter; it may also be feminine.” It may also be described with a simple predicate adjective, τὸ
       ὄνομοα γάρ ἐστι θηλυκόν.
        Adjectives may be:
        • συγκριτικόν “comparative”
        • ὑπερθετικόν “superlative”
       Verbs
       Verbs have —
        • ἔγκλισις, ἡ “mood”
          – ὁριστική “indicative”
          – προστακτική “imperative” (lit., “commanding”)
          – εὐκτική “optative”
          – ὑποτακτική “subjunctive”
          – ἀπαρέμφατος “infinitive”
        • διάθεσις, ἡ “voice”
          – ἐνέργεια, ἡ “active,” adj. ἐνεργητικός
          – πάθος, ὁ “passive,” adj. παθητικός
          – μεσότης, ἡ “middle,” adj. μέσος
        • πρόσωπον, τό “person”
          – πρῶτον “first”
          – δεύτερον “second”
          – τρίτον “third”
        • χρόνος, ὁ “tense”
          – ἐνεστώς “present”
          – παρεληλυθώς “past”
          – παρατατικός “imperfect”
          – παρακείμενος “perfect”
          – ὑπερσυντέλικος “pluperfect”
          – ἀόριστος “aorist” (lit., “indefinite,” also used to describe a class of pronouns)
          – μέλλων “future”
        • συζυγία, ἡ “conjugation”
        Verb conjugation is described by accenting except for the -μι verbs:
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