An Overview of Greek Grammar

Learn about verbs, nouns, numbers, other parts of speech, and the phrase structure in Modern and Ancient Greek.

First, a few notes about large-scale Modern Greek syntax: An affirmative sentence in Greek follows the SVO pattern (Subject, Verb, Object), just like in English. However, the SVO structure is considerably more relaxed in Greek than in English. Greek has richer morphology than English, so it is usually quite clear which noun denotes the subject and which one the object, because of their morphological endings (subjects have nominative case endings, objects have accusative case endings, possessors have genitive case endings), and of the articles that precede them (again, articles change according to case). That is not to say one can jumble subjects, verbs, and objects in Greek, and still come up with a valid sentence. Rather, one may assume that the normal structure is very similar to the one in English (often a word-for-word translation will not be far from an accurate one), but one should not be surprised if one encounters a sentence with slightly different order; if that happens, it will be for purposes of emphasis (e.g., in English we may say “roaches, I can’t tolerate”; a similar structure exists in Greek, expressing similar emphasis). Interrogative and negative sentences may appear under different patterns (VOS, VSO, etc.).

In Ancient Greek, particularly in Classic, the pattern SOV was more common than SVO.

Possessive Adjectives and Personal Pronouns in Noun Phrases

A feature of the Modern Greek noun phrase that often seems strange to learners of the language is the “inversion” (e.g., relative to English, or Spanish) of the possessive adjective with respect to the noun. For example, in English we say: “my book” (Spanish: “mi libro”). In Modern Greek it is: “το βιβλίο μου”. That is, μου (= my) goes after the noun. (Notice also the mandatory inclusion of the definite article, το: as long as the noun is a definite and not an abstract one, the article agreeing in gender, case, and number with the noun has to be there; see table, below, for more details.) In Ancient Greek this would be: “τò ’εμòν βιβλίον”, so, ’εμόν (= my) goes before the noun, just like in English and Spanish.

The situation remains “reversed” (relative to English) with the personal pronoun. In English we say: “she gave me the book”. In Modern Greek it is: “μου έδωσε το βιβλίο”. That is, μου (= to me) goes before the verb. (Notice also that the pronoun “she” is nowhere to be found in the Greek sentence; we know the agent is in the third person, because of the verb form έδωσε, but the gender of the agent is not given; there is no natural way to convey the agent’s gender in this case in Greek.) In Ancient Greek this would be: “ ’έδωκέ μοι τò βιβλίον”, so, μοι (= to me) goes after the verb, just like in English. Spanish agrees with Modern Greek: “me dio el libro”.

On the contrary, the situation is “normal” in the imperative mood. In English we say: “give me the book” (Spanish: “dame el libro”). In Modern Greek it is: “δώσε μου το βιβλίο” (or, more colloquial: “δώσ’ μου το βιβλίο”, pronounced: [ðo´zmu to vivli´o]). In Ancient Greek it would be: “δός μοι τò βιβλίον”. So, in all cases the personal pronoun follows the verb.

Phrase Structure Comparison with English and Spanish

Click here for a table listing the most common phrase structures, comparing Modern Greek with English and Spanish.

Table of Parts of Speech

The following table shows the most common parts of speech in Greek, and whether their morphology is influenced by certain aspects of grammar (shown on the columns of the table). Click on the part of speech, if there is a link on it, to learn more about it.
 

(*) Among cardinal numbers, only one, three, and four are declined according to gender and case. Ordinal numbers are just like adjectives.

Genders

There are three genders in Greek: masculine, feminine, and neuter. All nouns have a specific gender, but contrary to English, even things (including concrete objects and abstract ideas) can be masculine, feminine, or neuter, and there is no way to predict the gender from the semantics of the noun a point that causes a lot of frustration to learners of Greek. For example, the wall is masculine, the door feminine, and the floor neuter. Native speakers of English typically make a strong association between the concepts masculine ↔ man and between feminine ↔ woman. Native speakers of Greek learn to associate the gender as something inherent to each specific noun, adjective, article, etc., and do not make such a strong association. So, we say that English has “natural gender”, whereas Greek has “formal gender”. (Many other Indo-European languages, such as French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, etc., also have formal gender.) Gender names in Greek: αρσενικό (masculine), θηλυκό (feminine), ουδέτερο (neuter).

Cases

Modern Greek has four cases:

• Nominative, for subjects of sentences; in Greek: Ονομαστική
• Genitive, denoting possession; in Greek: Γενική
• Accusative, for objects (direct & indirect) of sentences; in Greek: Αιτιατική
• Vocative, for calling (usually we call people, but every object has a vocative case it might be a character in a story); in Greek: Κλητική

Ancient and old Greek (up to a few decades ago) had one more case:

• Dative, for indirect objects, instruments of action, and other uses; in Greek: Δοτική

In contemporary Greek the dative case has been replaced by the accusative, but it remains fossilized in a few stock phrases and expressions (“εν πάση περιπτώσει” = “in any case”, “εν τούτοις” = “however”, etc.). See this page for a list of fossilized dative forms in Modern Greek.

Numbers

There are two numbers in Greek: singular, and plural. Classic Greek (including the most ancient texts, of Homer’s time) had an additional number, the dual (denoting pairs of entities). In Plato (typical Classic Greek), the dual is still in use (e.g., Symposium, §180d, §184c, §213d, etc.), but seems to belong to the academic, erudite language. Today there is not even a fossil of the dual number remaining in the language, to the best of my knowledge. Number names in Greek: Singular: Ενικός; Plural: Πληθυντικός; Ancient Dual: Δυϊκός.

Tenses

The following tenses exist in both Modern and Ancient Greek (you will see them presented usually in the same order in Greek grammar books):

• Present, denoting both continuous and habitual aspects. There is no distinction between continuous (“I am helping”) and habitual (“I help”) aspects in the Greek present tense. If one is forced to make the distinction, one can use more than one word to describe the situation. (For example: Τον βοηθάω τώρα: I am helping him now; Or: Τον βοηθάω κάθε φορά: I help him every time.) Usually the context provides disambiguation. Tense name in Greek: Modern: Ενεστώτας; Ancient: ’Ενεστώς.
• Imperfect, best translated in English by “I used to help”, and “I was helping”, with its own morphology (endings). The imperfect tense implies a continuous or repeated action which was happening (or: used to happen) in the past and was not completed (hence, “imperfect”). For example: Το τρένο πάντα έφτανε στις οκτώ: The train always used to arrive at eight (repeated action). Or: Επινα τον καφέ μου όταν άκουσα τον κρότο: I was drinking my coffee when I heard the bang (continuous action). Tense name in Greek: Παρατατικός.
• Past (“I helped”), with its own morphology (endings). In Classic Greek, several verbs had a “1st past” and “2nd past” form (usually called “1st & 2nd aorist” in grammar books), and the two forms had absolutely no semantic distinction. In Modern Greek (luckily) there is only one past form. Tense name in Greek: ’Αόριστος.
• Future (“I will help”, “I will be helping”), formed by prepending the particle “θα” (“will”, “shall”) to the past subjunctive form of the verb to form the simple future (or: definite future: “I will help”: θα βοηθήσω), and to the present subjunctive form (which is identical to the simple present) to form the future continuous (or: indefinite future: “I will be helping”: θα βοηθάω). Do not be confused with this emphasis on “subjunctive”. In Modern Greek there are no distinct subjunctive forms; so, βοηθήσω is the form we refer to here. If you prepend θα to it, you get the simple future; if you prepend να, you get the subjunctive mood (translated usually with the infinitive in English: “to help”). Examples: θα τη βοηθήσω μετά το σχολείο: I will help her after school (simple future). And: θα τη βοηθάω όποτε θέλω: I will be helping her whenever I want (future continuous, but with a habitual aspect). In ancient Greek the future tense had its own morphology (endings). Tense name in Greek: Modern: Μέλλοντας; Ancient: Μέλλων.
• Perfect (or present perfect: “I have helped”), formed by the present form of the verb “have” (“έχω”, in the appropriate person and number), followed by the third person singular of the past subjunctive of the verb (see comments on Future, above). Example: έχω βοηθήσει πολλούς μέχρι τώρα: I have helped many till now. In Ancient Greek this tense involved the reduplication of the first syllable, and had its own morphology (endings). Tense name in Greek: Παρακείμενος.
• Pluperfect (or past perfect: “I had helped”) formed by the past form of the verb “have” (“είχα”, in the appropriate person and number), followed by the third person singular of the past subjunctive of the verb (see comments on Future, above). Example: είχα βοηθήσει πολλούς τότε: I had helped many back then. In Ancient Greek this tense involved the reduplication of the first syllable, and had its own morphology (endings). Tense name in Greek: ‘Υπερσυντέλικος.
• Future perfect (“I will have helped”) formed by the future form of the verb “have” (“θα έχω”, in the appropriate person and number), followed by the third person singular of the past subjunctive of the verb (see comments on Future, above). In Ancient Greek this tense was formed by the perfect participle, followed by the present form of the verb “have” (“έχω”, in the appropriate person and number). Tense name in Greek: Modern: Τετελεσμένος Μέλλοντας; Ancient: Τετελεσμένος Μέλλων.

For more information on tenses, see the page on verbs in Modern Greek.

Persons

The usual three persons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) exist in Greek as in English, with the simplification that when a verb appears in the 3rd person, there is no pronoun (“he”, “she”, “it”) prepended to specify its gender. Verbs appear in a simple 3rd-person form, in both the singular and plural. (However, some pronouns, e.g., the personal pronouns, do have genders in the third person singular, as in English.)

Moods

The situation with moods has been largely simplified in Modern Greek, to the extent that only the indicative and the imperative exist (morphologically; but read the note on the subjunctive, below). Since the imperative exists only in the 2nd person (singular and plural), one does not really have to learn much.

In Ancient Greek, however, the following moods existed:

• Indicative, the “normal” or “default” mood. In Greek: Οριστική.
• Subjunctive, usually translated by “to + infinitive” in English, as in “I want to help”. The past subjunctive form of the verb is a very important concept in Modern Greek: it is used to form the tenses: simple future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect. It is called “subjunctive” for historical reasons, only. See the conjugation of the verb λύνω to understand what this form is (it appears under Future, Indicative). In Greek: Υποτακτική.
• Optative, best translated by “I wish + verb” in English, as in “I wish I could help”. Why would ancient Greeks need a special mood to express this rather infrequent idea? Maybe because languages were not designed by logicians and mathematicians. In Greek: Ευκτική.
• Imperative, used when ordering, or requesting, as in English (“help!”). In Greek: Προστακτική.
• Infinitive. Strictly speaking, this was not a mood. Infinitives do not exist in Modern Greek except for a few fossilized forms; the past subjunctive form (see above) is used in Modern Greek in place of the infinitive. Dictionaries show the 1st person singular of present tense for verb entries, and this usually applies to dictionaries not only of the modern, but also of the ancient language. In Greek: Απαρέμφατον.

Voices

Two voices exist in Modern Greek:

• Active voice, with the same semantics as in English (in Greek: Ενεργητική), and
• Passive voice, also with the same semantics as in English (in Greek: Παθητική).

It should be noted that the passive voice has its own set of morphology, i.e., endings, for each tense, person, and number. That complicates things a bit, doesn’t it? Still, things could be worse: in Ancient Greek, there was a third voice:

• Middle voice (in Greek: Μέση), the morphological endings of which were the same as those of the passive in the present and imperfect tense, but differed in other tenses. Verbs in middle voice were intransitive verbs, where the agent causing the action was usually one’s own self. Example: “I comb myself”: imagine that the English active verb “to comb” can be turned to middle voice by adding a morpheme, meaning “self”; e.g., something like “to selfcomb”. One would not need a direct object for this verb then, because the direct object (“myself”) is already given by the added morpheme. There are several such verbs in Modern Greek, relics of the past, which appear only in middle-voice endings (although this voice does not exist in Modern Greek grammar, so their endings are actually those of the passive), such as the auxiliary verb “be” (“είμαι”), the verb “think” (“σκέφτομαι”), and many more. For more information on this subject, see the page on verbs.

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