Modern Greek Grammar

Konstantinos Athanasiou

5. The cases /
In a higly inflected language as Greek the role of the words in the sentence is not indicated by their position but
by their cases.
Cases are the different forms Greek words as articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, participles can have. The
form of the words changes at the ending, the first part of the words, the so-called stem, does not change.
Modern Greek has four cases:
st
1 : the nominative
nd
2 : the genitive
rd
th
3 : the accusative (in ancient Greek 4 )
th
th
4 : the vocative (case of direct address, in ancient Greek 5 )
The nominative
The nominative indicates:
1. the subject in the sentence
.
2.

Helen buys apples.

the predicate in the sentence as well, when linking verbs are used:
.
Nikos is a good pupil.

The genitive
The genitive indicates:
1. Possesion
.
.

Nikos car.
Marias bicycle.

2.

The subject (The genitive with nouns related to verbs may indicate the subject of the action. If these
nouns convert to verbs, the word in genitive will become the subject of the sentence.)
. . The victory of the Spartans. (The Spartans won.)

3.

The object (The genitive with nouns related to verbs may indicate the direct object of the action. If
these nouns convert to verbs, the word in genitive will become the direct object of the sentence.)
. . They are the guardians of the country. (They guard
the country)

4.

The indirect object in the sentence, mostly persons or personal pronouns (or with certain verbs the
direct object, e.g. (phone), (look like))
. Grandmother gives Maria a ring.
.
I give him a book.
.
I offer her coffee.
.
I phoned her.
.
He looks like his father.

5.

Age, date, time

23 ( ) .
15 .
.

I am 23 years old.
My birthday is on the 15th of March.
In the middle of the week.

Cause
.

The sorrow of the farewell.

Purpose, use
.
.

Leisure trip.
Climbing shoes.

6.

7.

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Modern Greek Grammar

Konstantinos Athanasiou

8.

9.

Characteristic
.

A literate person.

Quantity
. He/She bought a four kilos turkey.
.
He/She has a three months leave.

10. Origin
.

Smoked cheese from Metsovo.

11. Familial relationship

.

Marias brother.

12. Place
.

The battle of Marathon.

The accusative
The accusative
1. indicates the direct object in the sentence:
.
Nikos knows Kosta.
.
Kostas knows Helen.
2.

is used after a preposition:

with

from

for

to

to

3.

may indicate time:

; When wil you go to Maria?
.
On Monday.

The vocative
The vocative is used to address somebody:
!
!
!
!
!
!

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in digital form or any other form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm or any other means without written permission from the author Konstantinos Athanasiou.