Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek Part 3!

Well followers, with the success of parts one and two of my Important Rules Series I give you part three!

This post will look at the most important things to remember when learning about the Greek personal pronouns, the perfect and pluperfect tenses and a few significant verbs to remember when reading ancient and New Testament Greek. For Parts one and two of the series, click on the links below before reading this post. Enjoy 🙂

Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek Part 1

Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek Part 2

The Greek Personal Pronouns

• The pronoun stands in the place of a person
• Pronouns occur in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd person
• Declension of the personal pronoun of the first person
  • No vocative in the first person pronouns (remember that the vocative case is used in a noun that identifies a person being addressed)
  • ἐμοῦ (genitive singular), ἐμοί (dative singular), and ἐμέ (accusative singular) are used to express emphasis
  • μοῦ, μοί, μέ are enclitics throwing the accent of the pronoun onto the preceding word
  • Enclitics used when there is no particular emphasis on the pronouns
• Declension of the personal pronoun of the second person
  • Vocative the same as nominative
  • σου, σοι, σε are enclitic, except when used emphatically
  • Watch similarity of ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς
• Declension of the personal pronoun of the third person
  • Declension the same as ἁγαθός
  • Except for the neuter nominative/accusative singular form αὐτό

Personal Pronouns (First and Second Person)

		1st person	1st person unemphatic	2nd person	2nd person unemphatic
sing.	nom.	ἐγώ		σύ
	gen.	ἐμοῦ	μου	σοῦ	σου
	dat.	ἐμοί	μοι	σοί	σοι
	acc.	ἐμέ	με	σέ	σε

pl.	nom.	ἡμεῖς		ὑμεῖς
	gen.	ἡμῶν		ὑμῶν
	dat.	ἡμῖν		ὑμῖν
	acc.	ἡμᾶς		ὑμᾶς

αὐτός: Third Person Pronoun (oblique cases only) and Intensive Pronoun

		masc.	fem.	neuter
sing.	nom.	αὐτός	αὐτή	αὐτό
	gen.	αὐτοῦ	αὐτῆς	αὐτοῦ
	dat.	αὐτῷ	αὐτῇ	αὐτῷ
	acc.	αὐτόν	αὐτήν	αὐτό

pl.	nom.	αὐτοί	αὐταί	αὐτά
	gen.	αὐτῶν	αὐτῶν	αὐτῶν
	dat.	αὐτοῖς	αὐταῖς	αὐτοῖς
	acc.	αὐτούς	αὐτάς	αὐτά

Characteristics of Personal Pronouns

• Used in place of nouns and other substantives in order to avoid monotony
• The noun for ehivh s pronoun is called an ANTECEDENT
  • Agrees with its antecedent in gender and number
  • Personal pronouns are used in the nominative case only when emphasis is intended
  • The genitive case is frequently used to express possession
  • The emphatic forms of the personal pronouns are normally used after prepositions

Special Uses of AUTOS (αὐτός)

• Two special uses:
• When used with an article in the attributive positive it means the SAME = ADJECTIVAL AUTOS
• When used without an article in the predicate position = SELF = INTENSIVE AUTOS

Intensive AUTOS may also be used with other pronouns or with the unexpressed subject of the verb

The perfect active indicative of LUW (λύω = to loose)

• The fourth principal part = PERFECT ACTIVE
• From this are obtained the forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future tenses of the verb
• Obtained by:
  • Affixing the perfective aspect morpheme KA
  • Attaching the secondary active suffixes
  • Prefixing a reduplicated syllable to beginning = consonant of start plus epsilon E
  • Exceptions derive from the phonetic characteristics of the initial phoneme of the verb
    • If start with  PHI, THETA or CHI = TAU start
    • If start with PSI, ZETA or XI or Two Consonants except LAMBDA or RHO = EPSILON start
    • If start with with VOWEL = Temporal Augment EPSILON

Second perfects

• Some verbs do not contain the KAPPA
• Conjugated exactly like the first perfects except without the Kappa
• Distinction is one of form only and not of function

The significance of the perfect tense

• State resulting from a completed action
• Temporal focus more on the present than on the past
• Choice of use not necessarily determined by the objective facts
• Choice by the writer’s point of view of the action
• Significance must be determined by the context

The pluperfect active indicative of LUW

• Represents the past tense of the perfect
• Has an augment in addition to the reduplication
• EI as connecting vowels
• Augment often omitted
• Pluperfect seldom seen in New Testament
• Future perfect tense even rarer – expresses the perfective aspect in future time

The verb OIDA (οἶδα = to know)

• Synonym of γινώσκω (to know or perceive)
• Has only perfect and pluperfect forms
• Used with present and past meanings also
• Regarded as a present tense verb
• ᾔδειν is an imperfect tense verb (pluperfect indicative active 1st person)

Resources that may help you further:

Perseus Vocabulary Tools

New Testament Greek Grammar Books

Learn to Read New Testament Greek, Third Edition, By: David Alan Black

Little Greek 101

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