The Definite Article in Modern and Ancient Greek

The definite article in Modern and Ancient Greek is given in the tables below. Read about the forms στ-, following the tables.

Modern Greek   Ancient Greek
Singular
case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative ο η το
Genitive του της του
Accusative τον την το
Vocative      
Plural
case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative οι οι τα
Genitive των των των
Accusative τους τις τα
Vocative      
 
Singular
case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Accusative
Vocative
Plural
case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Accusative
Vocative

Notes:

In the column for Modern Greek there is no accent mark, as all forms of the definite article are monosyllabic, hence the single accent mark should not be placed over the word. In Ancient Greek, all diacritics are shown as necessary. (Read here about the diacritic-placement rules in both Modern and Ancient Greek.)

Note also that, strictly speaking, the definite article does not have a vocative case even in Ancient Greek. I included in the table above simply for compatibility with several grammar books which also include it. This is an expletive, similar to “hey!” in English (but less rude than that). The corresponding expletive in Modern Greek is “έι!”, or “ε!” (and it is as informal/impolite/rude, as “hey!”).

The forms στ- (e.g., στον, στην, στου, etc.) in Modern Greek

Learners of Modern Greek encounter forms like στον, στου, στις, στα, etc., very soon as they progress learning Greek, and wonder about two things: 1. What do these forms mean? and 2. Why are they so common?

1. What these forms mean

The meaning of these little words is understood easily if we answer the following question: why do they all start with a sigma? The answer is, because they are all a combination of a preposition + some form of the definite article, in any case except the nominative. Take for example, στον: the preposition part is the initial σ-, and the article is -τον (masculine, accusative, singular, according to the above table). The full form of the preposition was εις in the not-so-remote past, and it meant “in”. (Up until the late 1970’s, Greek newspapers were still using εις.) So the full form used to be “εις τον”. But the εις got reduced to a single σ out of erosion, due to its everyday usage, and was combined with the article following it into one unit. Thus, εις + τον > ’ς + τον > στον. Exactly the same happened to all the other forms of the definite article, but not in the nominative case. (So, although the nominative of the masculine is ο, there is nothing like σο.) It’s easy to understand why this worked only in the other cases except the nominative: because the ancient/obsolete preposition εις was expecting either genitive or accusative case to follow it (or even the now-extinct dative), but never nominative. But why? Again, it’s easy to see that, too: what is the meaning of εις τον? In English, we’d translate it as “in the”, correct? Well, if we had a case system for articles in English, you’d see that the “the” would be expressed in the accusative case — it’s only logical to do so. Indeed, consider that in the only situation where cases still exist in English, i.e., in pronouns, we say “in her”, which is accusative/dative (“There’s something in her that makes her...”), not *“in she”, which would be the nominative case. So, “in” cannot be followed by nominative, even in English. Ditto in Greek, except that the Greek case system is extant, and transparent. So there can’t be σο (masc.), or ση (fem.), and if you ever see στο (neut.), that will have to be in the accusative, which coincides in form with the nominative in the neuter gender. (Caveat: στο can also be used as a variant of στον [masc.], dropping the final -ν for euphonic reasons, especially when the following noun starts with a ν- or μ-.)

2. Why these forms are so common

There is an explanation for that, too, and it is as follows. English uses a lot of prepositions to differentiate in what way a noun is related to another noun. For instance, we say: “the book is on the table”, “the fork is in the drawer”, “the child is at home”, “dad goes to the church”. In contrast, Greek belongs to the “Spanish school” in how it sees the relations between nouns: it sees them in a simple way (simpler than English). So, just like the Spanish speakers use only “en” in their language (meaning “in”, and for that reason they often use erroneously “in” when they speak English in all kinds of cases where they should use “on”, “at”, or “to”), ditto with Greek, which used to use only εις (“in”) in the past, and so after εις became obsolete, the language was left with the various forms of στ-. Thus, whereas in English we say “on the wall”, a Greek speaker says «στον τοίχο»; the “in the sea” is «στη θάλασσα»; the “at school” is «στο σχολείο»; and so on.

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