αἱ πτώσεις - The Cases
Compare the following sentences:
- βλέπει ὁ ἀνὴρ τὸν λέοντα.
- τὸν ἄνδρα βλέπει ὁ λέων.
The meaning changes based on the endings of the nouns rather than the word order of the sentence. In the first sentence, the man sees the lion, the man is marked as the grammatical subject since it is in the nominative case (ὁ ἀνήρ). In the second sentence, the lion sees the man, the lion is in the nominative case (ὁ λέων) marking it as the subject. Notice that in both sentences the objects are marked with the use of the accusative case, τὸν λέοντα and τὸν ἄνδρα respectively.
Nouns take different cases depending on their grammatical place in the sentence. Koine Greek uses case endings to mark words for case. There are various patterns that words follow when they change case (more on this later). However, case can be readily identified by the article if it is present. Here is a table that show the masculine, feminine, and neuter singular article.
| πτῶσις (case) | ἀρσενικόν (masc) | θηλυκόν (fem) | οὐδέτερον (neut) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ὀνοματική (nom) | ὁ | ἡ | τό |
| αἰτιατική (acc) | τόν | τήν | τό |
| γενική (gen) | τοῦ | τῆς | τοῦ |
| δοτική (dat) | τῷ | τῇ | τῷ |