CASES

Greek has 5 cases and unlike Latin, has no ablative case (The role of the ablative case in Latin is instead split between the genitive and the dative case in Greek)

NOMINATIVE CASE:

The Nominative Case is used to denote the subject of a sentence - i.e. the thing/person doing the verb.

E.g. ‘The dog eats the food’ - The dog is the subject

This is exactly the same usage as in Latin.

VOCATIVE CASE:

The Vocative Case is used to address someone. The noun is usually grammatically separated from the rest of the sentence.

ACCUSATIVE CASE:

The Accusative case is most commonly used to denote the object of a sentence - i.e. the thing having the verb done to them.

E.g. ‘The dog eats the food’ - The food is the object

Other uses of the Accusative case:

  • Expressing time how long (e.g. for five hours) is put in the accusative. No word for ‘for’ is needed. (Just like Latin)

GENITIVE CASE:

The Genitive Case most commonly denotes possession.

E.g. ‘The man’s dog is tired’ - ‘The man’ would be in the genitive as he is possessing the dog.

An important construction to be aware of is what is known as the ‘sandwich construction’ - this is when the description is sandwiched between the article and the noun it describes, often with a genitive description.

E.g. ὁ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ δοῦλος = The slave of the general

Notice, the genitive description ‘of the general’ is surrounded by the article and noun ‘the slave’

The easiest way to spot this construction is when two definite articles are next to each other - make sure to translate the outer part first and then the description inside afterwards.

Other uses of the Genitive:

  • Expressing time within which (e.g. within 5 hours) is put in the genitive. This time phrase naturally uses a cardinal number.

  • Genitive Absolute - See the relevant grammar section for more detail.

DATIVE CASE

The Dative Case is used for the indirect object - often translated as ‘to’ or ‘for’

E.g. ‘I give the ball to the dog’ - ‘The ball’ is the direct object (Accusative) and ‘the dog’ is the indirect object (Dative)

Other uses of the dative:

  • Expressing time when (e.g. on the 3rd day) is put in the dative. This time phrase naturally goes with an ordinal number.

  • Possessive dative - ‘The woman has a dog’ can also be worded as ‘there is a dog to the woman’ in which case ‘to the woman’ would be a dative. Such a sentence uses the verb εἰμί.