αἱ πτώσεις - The Cases
Case refers to the various forms that a nominal takes based on its grammatical use in a clause or phrase. An example of case in English is I and me. Take the two examples, “I saw the dog” and “The dog saw me.” The pronouns I and me refer to the same person, but they serve different functions in each sentence. In the first sentence I refers to the person that is doing the action of seeing, and in the second sentence me refers to the person that had the action done to it. These are two different functions, and they correspond to the two different forms of first person singular pronoun I and me.
Different grammarians define case in Koine Greek in slightly different ways. But it is important to know that in some way case refers to the form of the nominal that corresponds to the function of the word. Look at the following Greek sentences and notice how the nouns change form based on how they function in the sentence.
Compare the following sentences:
- βλέπει ὁ ἀνὴρ τὸν λέοντα. The man sees the lion.
- τὸν ἄνδρα βλέπει ὁ λέων. The lion sees the man.
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 shows the case of the masculine, feminine, and neuter singular article.
| πτῶσις (case) | ἀρσενικόν (masc) | θηλυκόν (fem) | οὐδέτερον (neut) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ὀνοματική (nominative) | ὁ | ἡ | τό |
| αἰτιατική (accusative) | τόν | τήν | τό |
| γενική (genitive) | τοῦ | τῆς | τοῦ |
| δοτική (dative) | τῷ | τῇ | τῷ |