An Introduction to the Grammar of Koine Greek

for English Barbarians

Unit One

Jonathan Wilkins

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Table of Contents

Foreword: Did you just call me a barbarian? ............................................................................................ 3

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter One: The Greek Alphabet ........................................................................................................... 7
The Greek Alphabet ............................................................................................................................. 7
Learning the Alphabet ......................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter Two: Pronunciation and Punctuation.......................................................................................... 9
Vowels and Diphthongs ....................................................................................................................... 9
Iota subscript ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Accents, Syllables, and Breathing Marks ............................................................................................ 10
Consonants........................................................................................................................................ 11
Punctuation Marks ............................................................................................................................ 11
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 12
Chapter Three: Basics of Verbs .............................................................................................................. 13
Tense................................................................................................................................................. 13
Voice ................................................................................................................................................. 14
Mood ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Person ............................................................................................................................................... 14
Number ............................................................................................................................................. 14
Conjugation ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Chapter Four: Present Active Indicative Verbs ....................................................................................... 15
Stems ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Endings and Translation ..................................................................................................................... 15
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 16
Parsing .............................................................................................................................................. 17
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 17
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 17
Chapter Five: Basics of Nouns ................................................................................................................ 18
Gender .............................................................................................................................................. 18

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 Number ............................................................................................................................................. 18
Case .................................................................................................................................................. 18
Case Prepositions .............................................................................................................................. 20
Declension......................................................................................................................................... 20
Indeclinable Nouns ............................................................................................................................ 20
Chapter Six: Second Declension Nouns .................................................................................................. 21
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 22
Parsing Nouns.................................................................................................................................... 22
The Article ......................................................................................................................................... 23
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 23
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 24
Chapter Seven: Syntax ........................................................................................................................... 25
Kernel Clause..................................................................................................................................... 25
The Subject ........................................................................................................................................ 25
Agreement ........................................................................................................................................ 25
Word Order ....................................................................................................................................... 25
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 26
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 28
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 28
Chapter Eight: Conjunctions .................................................................................................................. 29
Kinds of Conjunctions ........................................................................................................................ 29
Common Greek Conjunctions ............................................................................................................ 29
Clauses .............................................................................................................................................. 29
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 30
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 30
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 31
Chapter Nine: First Declension Nouns .................................................................................................... 32
Main Paradigm .................................................................................................................................. 32
Variations .......................................................................................................................................... 32
Masculine First Declension Nouns ..................................................................................................... 33
Feminine Article ................................................................................................................................ 33
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 34

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 Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 34
Chapter Ten: Adjectives and Particles .................................................................................................... 35
Adjectives .......................................................................................................................................... 35
The Negative Particle ......................................................................................................................... 36
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 36
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 38
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 38
Chapter Eleven: Prepositions ................................................................................................................. 39
Prepositional Phrases ........................................................................................................................ 40
Prepositional Prefixes ........................................................................................................................ 40
Function of Prepositional Phrases ...................................................................................................... 40
Final Vowels ...................................................................................................................................... 40
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 41
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 42
Chapter Twelve: Personal Pronouns ...................................................................................................... 43
Paradigms.......................................................................................................................................... 43
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 44
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 45
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 45
Chapter Thirteen: Demonstrative Pronouns........................................................................................... 46
Near Demonstrative Pronoun ou-toj ................................................................................................... 46
Far Demonstrative Pronoun evkei/noj ................................................................................................... 46
Practice ............................................................................................................................................. 46
Vocabulary ........................................................................................................................................ 47
Exercises............................................................................................................................................ 47

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Chapter Three: Basics of Verbs
“Verbs are where the action is.”7 What is a verb? A verb is a word that describes an action or state of
being. John threw the ball. John took the action of throwing the ball as shown by the verb “threw”.
John is a good pitcher. Here John is in the state of being a good picture as shown by the verb “is”.

Greek verbs, like English verbs, have a tense, mood, voice, person, and number. This chapter is a basic
overview of Greek verbs and is mostly here for reference. So if you don’t understand some of these
concepts that’s okay, it will be easier to understand once you start working with Greek words.

Tense
In Greek a verb’s tense denotes the time and type of action of the verb. There are six tenses in Koine
Greek: Present, Imperfect, Future, Aorist, Perfect, and Pluperfect. We will cover theses in depth later,
this chapter is an overview.

Time this is when the verb takes place in relation to the speaker. A present tense verb’s action takes
place during the present of the speaker. For example in John 3:3 Jesus answers Nicodemus by saying “I
say unto thee”. “Say” is in the present tense, so from the Jesus’ point of view the action was going on in
the present, but from our point of view it was in the past.

There are three basic kinds of time: Past, Present, and Future

There are two basic types of action, Progressive and Undefined.

Progressive action is a continuing action, while punctiliar action looks at a point of action. “We are
eating dinner” – this is progressive action, dinner is in progress, while “we ate dinner” is Undefined, it
looks at the eating of dinner as a single action8. Think of it like the difference between a video camera
and a still camera. A video camera captures the action as it is happening, while a still camera only
captures a point of the action.

Now the perfect and pluperfect tenses will combine these two types of action to produce a third,
Perfect. A perfect action was completed at some point in the past (undefined) and the results of that
action continue at least until the present of the speaker (progressive). In John 19:30 Christ cried out “It
is finished” (Τετέλεσται) which is in the perfect tense, so at some point in the past Christ finished His
work on the cross, and the results of that work continue.

7
Paraphrase of a statement my first year Hebrew teacher, Bro. Plais Hoyle, made when we got to the chapter on
verbs.
8
You may also hear the term Punctiliar in reference to undefined action.

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Voice
Verbs have what is called voice. Voice is the relationship of the action of the verb to the subject. There
are three voices.

 Active – The subject is the one doing the action of the verb. “John threw the ball.” John was
the one throwing.
 Passive – The subject is being acted upon by an outside force. “John was hit by the ball.” John,
the subject, received the action of hitting from an outside source.
 Middle – The subject is doing the action to (or for) himself. “John threw the ball to himself.” In
English we don’t have a middle tense, so we need a few extra words to express this idea. This
voice is sometimes also called reflexive.

Mood
The Mood of a verb describes its relationship to reality. The three moods are the Indicative,
Subjunctive, and Optative. For now we will only discuss the Indicative mood, the other will be discussed
later.

The action of a verb in the Indicative mood is presented as being fact. “John is the team captain.” Here
it is presented as fact that John is the team captain. The reader will have to look at the context to
determine if John really is the captain, because lies can be told in the indicative as well. This is why I say
that the action is presented as reality.

Person
The best way to describe person is using the English word “be.” If “be” is used with a first person
noun/pronoun it becomes “am.” “I am”, “you are”, and “he is”. Most English verbs don’t change forms
based on the person of the subject, but Greek verbs do.

I use a mnemonic “I am first, you are second, and he is third” to keep my persons straight.

Number
The number of a word (both verbs and nouns have number) tells wither it is singular or plural. When
someone asks you about the number of a Greek word there are only two possible answers, singular or
plural. “Ten monkeys are in the zoo.” What is the number of monkeys? See footnote for answer 9.

Conjugation
Verbs are divided into two basic groups called conjugations. We will focus only on one of these,
commonly called the w conjugation.10

When we take a verb and list it in its different forms this is called conjugating the verb.

9
Plural. While it is true there are ten monkeys (I know from experience that some of you said “ten”) the number
of the word “monkeys” is plural.
10
The other is called the mi conjunction, and we will treat it separately later on.

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Chapter Four: Present Active Indicative Verbs
A present verb takes place in the present (in relation to the speaker), and has a progressive type of
action. An active verb is one in which the subject is preforming the action. An indicative verb is
presented as reality. So a present active indicative verb means that the subject is really in the process of
doing something in the present (from the point of view of the speaker).

Below you will see a chart or what is commonly called a paradigm. This chart uses the Greek word le,gw
(“I say”) to show the forms a Present Active Indicative verb can take, that is the chart will conjugate the
verb.

Singular Plural
First Person le,gw le,gomen
Second Person le,geij le,gete
Third Person le,gei le,gousi$n%

Stems
Notice that all the words start with leg. This is what is called the verb’s stem. The stem of the verb is
the basis for adding endings. For the most part the stem of a verb will not change.11 To find the stem of
a word (nouns and adjectives have stems too!) first we need to find its lexical form. The lexical form is
the form of the word we will find in a Lexicon (Greek dictionaries are called lexicons). For verbs the
lexical form is the Present Active Indicative Singular form (the first form in this chart). The lexical form
of le,gw is le,gw.

Once you have the lexical form remove the ending w and what remains is the stem. Add endings to the
stem to get the different forms.

Endings and Translation

If you take the stem le,g and add the ending w to it to get the present active indicative first person
singular le,gw which is translated “I eat” or “I am eating”. Add the second person singular ending eij to
the stem to get le,geij which is translated “you eat” or “you are eating”. To make a third person singular
word add ei to the stem to get le,gei “he eats” or “he is eating.”

Greek verbs have a built-in subject that is used if a subject is not otherwise expressed. This “built-in”
subject is the person of the verb. So instead of saying evgw, (the Greek word for “I”) le,gw to express “I
eat” only le,gw is necessary.12

11
There are occasions of stem changes, but we will cross that bridge when we get there.
12
Though the evgw, can be added, usually to express emphasis, “I myself eat”.

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Also note at the end of the third person plural form is a nu in parenthesis. This denotes an optional nu
called a Movable Nu. The movable nu is not required so some authors choose to add it, some do not.
The only thing it changes is the pronunciation.

Practice
Let’s work through conjugating a word together. We will use the word lu,w which means “I loose” or “I
destroy”.13 lu,w is the Lexical form. So we remove the w ending to find the stem, lu. Now we want to
conjugate lu,w in the present active indicative forms, so we take the present active indicative endings
and apply them to the stem.

Singular Plural
First Person &w &omen
Second Person &eij &ete
Third Person &ei &ousi$n%

So we take the stem lu and add the First Person Singular ending w to get the word lu,w “I loose”. Next
we add the Second Person Singular ending eij to the stem lu to get lu,eij “you loose”. Then we add the
Third Person Singular ending ei to the stem lu to get lu,ei “he14 looses”. Now we move on to the plurals.
Add the First Person Plural ending omen to the stem lu to get lu,omen “we loose”. Do the same with the
Second Person Plural ending ete to the stem to get lu,ete “you(plural) loose”. And finally add the Third
Person Plural ending ousi to the stem to get lu,ousi “they loose” (you don’t have to add the movable nu,
but to help you remember it might be there you might want to put it in parenthesis). I suggest using a
similar chart layout as the one shown above, so your chart should look like this:

Singular Plural
First Person lu,w lu,omen
Second Person lu,eij lu,ete
Third Person lu,ei lu,ousi$n%

13
In Luke 13:15 Jesus tells the ruler of the synagogue that men loose (lu,ei) their donkeys on the Sabbath.
14
In Greek, verbs do not carry a gender (they do in Hebrew though) so the third person singular can refer to any
gender, so I am using the default English pronoun “he” because I am old fashioned (and “he” is easier to type than
“he or she or it”). When you see a verb in context it should be clear which gender pronoun to use.

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Parsing
To conjugate a verb you take the stem and add endings. To parse a verb you take a preexisting word
and tell what it is. For example if someone were to ask you to parse the word lu,eij you would tell them
that it is a verb, present, active, indicative, second person, singular, translated “you loose”.

When parsing verbs I will use the format:

part of speech, tense, voice, mood, person, number, lexical form, translation

Conjugating using the paradigm (chart) to form words, Parsing is using the paradigm to tell what an
existing word is.

Vocabulary
a;gw I lead
avkou,w I hear
ba,llw I throw
gra,fw I write
ginw,skw I know (through experience)
e;cw I have
qe,lw I wish, I want, I desire
kri,nw I judge
le,gw I say
lu,w I loose, I destroy

Exercises
Conjugate qe,lw in the Present Active Indicative (make a chart like in the practice section but using qe,lw
instead of lu,w)

It would be good practice to conjugate all the other vocabulary words as well.

Parse the following words:

1. e;cei
2. kri,nousin
3. le,gete
4. ba,llei
5. a;gomen
6. gra,feij

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Chapter Five: Basics of Nouns
A noun is a word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea.

Gender
Greek nouns have what is called gender. There are three genders, Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter.
This does not mean that masculine nouns are referring to male things (though they can). Take the
English noun “ship”. Many sailors will refer to a ship as “she” but the ship itself has no gender.

Number
The number of a noun is just like the number of a verb. It can be either singular or plural.

Case
The case of a noun15 shows how it relates to other words in the sentence. In English we have four basic
cases Subjective, Possessive, Objective, and Vocative. We know that a word in the Subjective case will
relate to the rest of the sentence by being the subject, a word in the Possessive case owns something, a
word in the Objective case is usually a direct object, and the Vocative is used in direct address.

The number of Cases in Greek Grammar is determined on how you group the cases. Those that hold to
a five case system group the cases based on form, while those that use an eight case system base the
grouping on function. I will be using an eight case system, primarily because it is easier to transition
from an eight case system to a five case system 16. So when you read other Greek Grammars, or sit
under a teacher who uses a different case system you won’t be as confused.

15
Pronouns, Adjectives, and Participles also have case.
16
Beginning on page 65 of A Manual Grammar of the Greek of the New Testament by H. E. Dana an J. R. Mantey
you will find a wealth of information on other reasons to use the eight case system.

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The eight cases are as follow:

 Nominative – the case of Designation. The nominative case functions like our Subjective case in
English. The subject will most often be in the nominative case, as will predicate nominatives and
predicate adjectives
 Genitive – the case of Description. Nouns in the genitive case describe an attribute of another
word. Much of the time the genitive will be used to show possession, for example, take the
Greek phrase uivoj qeou. uivoj means “son,” and qeou is the genitive form of the word “God.” The
word qeou is used to describe something about the word uinoj, in this example it its telling
whose son he is. Most modern grammar books will tell you to translate this phrase as “God’s
son”, but I will advise against that. I would recommend using the word “of” when translating
genitives, because the Greek genitive case is much deeper than the English Possessive case, and
I want you to learn to think in Greek terms. So this phrase should be translated “son of God”.
 Ablative – the case of Separation. Ablative nouns are often used in conjunction with
prepositions like “away” or “from”, showing separation. Another usage is in showing
comparisons.
 Dative – the case of Reception. Datives will often be used to show relationships of actions and
nouns to people.17 Many times they are translated in English as Indirect Objects. For example in
the English sentence “John threw the ball to Bob.” Bob is the indirect object, but if this sentence
were a Greek sentence Bob would be in the Dative case. Bob is receiving the action of John
throwing the ball (that’s why it’s called the case of reception), it is taking the action and applying
it to a person.
 Locative – the case of Location. Nouns in the locative case give information as to location in
time and/or space. They are often used with the preposition “in”.
 Instrumental – the case of Means. Instrumental nouns tell more about what means something
was done. For example “Jim poked Joe with a stick”. “a stick” is the instrument with which Jim
poked Joe. Instruments can also be people (but we usually call those agents instead of
instruments).
 Accusative – the case of Limitation. Accusatives limit the action of a verb. Compare the two
sentences “Susan hit” and “Susan hit the ball”. In the second sentence Susan’s action of hitting
is limited to the ball, in the first we don’t know what or who Susan hit. The accusative is used in
this fashion, like the English Direct Object. Accusatives can do other things as well, but this is
their primary function.
 Vocative – the case of Address. Vocative nouns are used when a person is directly addressed.
“Joe, where are you.” “Joe” is an English vocative, he is being directly addressed in the
sentence. The Greek vocative works the same way. That is all the vocative does.

17
of A Manual Grammar of the Greek of the New Testament by H. E. Dana an J. R. Mantey p84

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Case Prepositions
The Greek cases contain ideas that English need to express in prepositions. So below is a list of
prepositions contained in the cases that will help you understand and communicate the meaning of the
cases.

Nominative -
Genitive of
Ablative from
Dative to
Locative in / at
Instrumental with
Accusative -
Vocative -

Declension
Declensions are like Conjugations, but for nouns. Nouns are divided into three declensions (aptly named
First Declension, Second Declension, and Third Declension) based on how the words are formed. So
First declension words have similar endings, but they are different to Second Declension words (but
there is some overlap in endings, but you will see that soon enough).

When you put a verb through its various forms, you conjugate it. When you do this to nouns you
decline it. So when someone asks you to decline a noun, they don’t want you to turn it down, but
rather to make a list of the noun with its various endings.

Indeclinable Nouns
Some nouns, especially those borrowed from other languages, do not inflect(change forms), and others
only inflect in certain cases. These are called Indeclinable Nouns. Usually these are names like VAbraam
or Dabid. VIhsuj (Jesus) is partially indeclinable, it has forms for some cases but defaults to VIhsuj for
others.

Much like Chapter Three, this chapter is mostly here for reference. So if you don’t understand these
concepts now, don’t worry.

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Chapter Six: Second Declension Nouns
We shall begin our study of nouns with the Second Declension.18 Second Declension nouns are basically
either masculine or neuter.19

Below is the paradigm of the Second Declension

Masculine Singular Masculine Plural Neuter Singular Neuter Plural

Nominative &oj &oi &on &a
Genitive &ou &wn &ou &wn
Ablative &ou &wn &ou &wn
Dative &w| &oij &w| &oij
Locative &w| &oij &w| &oij
Instrumental &w| &oij &w| &oij
Accusative &on &ouj &on &a
Vocative &e &oi &on &a
First off you should notice lots of repetition20. Notice that the Genitive and Ablative cases have the same
endings; and that the Dative, Locative, and Instrumental cases also share endings. Also notice that there
are only a few differences between the masculine endings and the neuter endings. Let’s look at this
chart again, but let’s condense it a little.

Masculine Masculine Neuter Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative &oj &oi &on &a
Gen/Abl &ou &wn &ou &wn
Dat/Loc/Ins &w| &oij &w| &oij
Accusative &on &ouj &on &a
Vocative &e &oi &on &a
This chart is a little easier to read (and learn).21 Keep in mind that the Genitive and Ablative cases share
forms but not function, as do the Dative, Locative, and Instrumental. How then do we tell them apart?
Context, but we will talk about that more in the next chapter.

18
The Second declension is easier to learn than the First declension, so we will learn the Second first.
19
There are feminine Second declension nouns, but they are rare. oivdoj is one
20
This repetition of form is why some people hold to the five case system.
21
An advantage of the five case system.

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Practice
Let’s decline a word! One of my favorite second declension words is karpo,j (fruit) which is a Masculine
Second declension noun, you can tell it is masculine because it ends in oj instead of on. First we need to
find the stem. We take the lexical form which, in the case of a noun, is the nominative singular form. So
karpo,j is the lexical form of karpo,j. Now we remove the nominative singular ending oj to get the stem
karp. Now we add the endings. We should end up with something like this

Masculine Singular Masculine Plural

Nominative karpoj karpoi
Gen/Abl karpou karpwn
Dat/Loc/Ins karpw| karpoij
Accusative karpon karpouj
Vocative karpe karpoi

We don’t add neuter endings because karp,oj is a masculine noun, not a neuter one. However if we
decline the word dw/ron (“gift”) we will use the neuter endings instead of the masculine endings,
because dw/ron is a neuter noun. You can tell because it ends in on and not oj. And we would end up
with this chart

Neuter Singular Neuter Plural

Nominative dwron dwra
Gen/Abl dwrou dwrwn
Dat/Loc/Ins dwrw| dwroij
Accusative dwron dwra
Vocative dwron dwra

Parsing Nouns
When we parse nouns (or articles, or adjectives) we will use the following format.

part of speech, gender, number, case, lexical form, translation

For example we will parse dwra

noun, neuter, plural, nominative, dwron, “gift”

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The Article
In English we have two articles, a definite article “the,” and an indefinite article “a”. Greek only has
definite articles. But unlike the English definite article, the Greek definite article inflects, which means
that it changes its form.22 Below is the paradigm for the Masculine and Neuter definite articles.

Masculine Masculine Neuter Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative o` oi` to, ta.
Gen/Abl tou/ tw/n tou/ tw/n
Dat/Loc/Ins tw|/ toi/j tw|/ toi/j
Accusative to,n tou,j to, ta.
It is important that you know these very well. But once you learn the endings for the Second declension
nouns you will find that the articles (except in the Nominative) are just the noun endings with a t. Also
notice there is no Vocative article.

Also note that if a noun does not have an article23 we will usually translate it as though it has an
indefinite article in English.

The article is how you know the gender of a noun when you look it up. In a lexicon a noun will (usually)
be followed by its genitive ending, and then the article it uses. For example if you were to look up the
word karpoj in a lexicon you would find something along the lines of karpo,j –ou, o`. Gender in the
vocabulary will be given in this format.

Vocabulary
a;ggelo,j( o` messenger, angel
a;nqrwpoj( o` man, mankind
avpo,stoloj( o` apostle
dou/loj( o` slave, servant
e;rgon( to, work
qeo,j( o` God, god
karpo,j( o` fruit
logo,j( o` word
te,knon( to, child
ui`o,j( o` son

22
The word “be” that we talked about in chapter three is an example of an English word that inflects. “Be”
changes its spelling based on how it is used. e.g. “I am”, “you are”. Most Greek words inflect, and that is what the
paradigms show.
23
the term for this situation is “anarthrous”

23
Exercises
Parse the following words. If the word could be more than one case, list all the possibilities.

1. a;ggelouj
2. doulw|
3. avpostolwn
4. qeou
5. e;rga
6. ui`oij
7. te,knon

Decline the Greek masculine and neuter definite articles.

24
Chapter Seven: Syntax
Not a tax on cigarettes, that’s a sin tax. Syntax has to do with the relationship of words in a sentence.
So far you have learned quite a few words and charts, and now it’s time to put it all together!

Kernel Clause
All sentences in all languages can be broken down into a kernel clause. A kernel clause is the basic idea
of the sentence, it consists of a subject and a verb. 24 “John, our team captain, threw the ball to George.”
The kernel clause of this sentence is “John threw,” all the other words in this sentence simply help
clarify and explain “John threw.” The kernel clause can also be called the main clause.

When we start working with Greek sentences, the first thing we will look for is the kernel clause, that is,
a subject and a verb.

The Subject
We know from Chapter Six that nouns in the nominative case often function as the subject of a
sentence. The Subject is the star of the sentence, if you will. The sentence is all about the subject.

Agreement
Words that modify each other must agree. For example a verb must agree with its subject in Person and
Number. So you cannot use a Singular noun as the subject of a Plural verb, or you can’t use a first
person verb with any noun.

 A Subject must agree with its Verb in Person and Number

 An Article must agree with its Noun in Gender, Number, and Case
 In Koine Greek neuter plural nouns will often take singular verbs. Keep this in mind!

Word Order
In English the order we place our words is very important, not so much in Greek. There are a few cases
where word order matters (e.g. a genitive noun will usually modify the noun nearest it), but because
Greek uses case endings and this system of agreement, words can go in whatever order the author
desires.

24
Either can be implied, but both are present.

25
Practice
I have found that the best way to learn is to do, so let’s dive in.

avnqrwpoj evcei touj karpouj

Step One: Parse25 the sentence. Parse every word in the sentence.

avnqrwpoj Noun, Masculine, Singular, Nominative, avnqrwpoj, “man”

evcei Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, Third Person, Singular, evcw, “he has”

touj Article, Masculine, Plural, Accusative, o` h` to26, “the”

karpouj Noun, Masculine, Plural, Accusative, karpoj, “fruits”

Step Two: Find the main verb. There are as many clauses in a sentence as there are verbs, in this step
we are looking for the kernel clause, or the main clause. In this case there is only one verb so that
makes things easier. Our verb is evcei.

Step Three: Find the subject. We need to look for a noun that agrees with our verb in number and
person, and that is in the nominative case. evcei is a third person verb, so we are not looking for
pronouns like “I” or “you”(besides you don’t know those yet) so either avnqrwpoj or karpouj will work
here. But evcei is a singular verb, so that rules out the plural karpouj. And to top it all off avnqrwpoj is in
the Nominative case. So our subject is avnqrwpoj.

We have now found the kernel clause, avnqrwpoj evcei.

Step Four: Figure out what everything else is doing. Now that we have the kernel clause we will try to
figure out how all the other words relate to it. karpouj is in the accusative case, and if we remember
what we learned in Chapter Five, nouns in the accusative case often function as direct objects. Direct
objects directly receive the action of the verb. You should recognize touj as a definite article, and there
is only one word that agrees with touj in Gender, Number, and Case, so touj modifies karpouj.

If more than one clause is present, repeat steps two through four.

Now we put it all together and translate. In English we typically start with the subject, so “a man”, then
we add the verb “a man has”, then we add our direct object “a man has fruits”. Finally we add the
article to get “A man has the fruits”.

25
You may also hear the term “locate” in place of “parse”
26
I will list all three forms of the article for the lexical form.

26
Let’s look at another example:

o` qeoj krinei ta ui`ouj avnqrwpwn

First we will parse the verse.

o` Article, Masculine, Singular, Nominative, o` h` to, “the”

qeoj Noun, Masculine, Singular, Nominative, qeoj, “God”

krinei Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, Third Person, Singular, krinw,“he judges”

touj Article, Masculine, Plural, Accusative, o` h` to, “the”

ui`ouj Noun, Masculine, Plural, Accusative, ui`oj, “sons”

avnqrwpwn Noun, Masculine, Plural, Genitive or Ablative , avnqrwpoj, “men”

Next let’s find the main verb. There is only one verb in this sentence krinei.

Next we look for our subject, and we find that we have a noun in the nominative case qeoj, so that is
probably our subject. And it is modified by the article o`.

Now we look at the rest of the sentence and find an article in the accusative case touj that agrees with a
noun in the accusative case ui`ouj, so it probably modifies that noun. Recall that accusative nouns often
function as direct objects, and that is what this noun is doing.

Before we look at the last word let’s get a rough translation. “The God judges the sons.”

Now for avnqrwpwn. Notice that it could be either an Ablative or a Genitive noun. The easy way to tell
which case it is in is to translate it with the helper prepositions. Recall that the helper preposition for
the Ablative case is “from”, while the helper preposition for the Genitive case is “of”.

Ablative = The God judges the sons from men.

Genitive = The God judges the sons of men.

This one is close, but “sons of men” sounds like it makes more sense, so we will call avnqrwpwn a genitive
noun.27

27
Typically, family relationships are conveyed using the Genitive case. In fact the genealogy of Christ in Luke
Chapter Three is a list of genitives, and the word uio,j is left out in the Greek because of this common usage of the
genitive. But we need the term to make good sense in English, so the translators added “the son” in italics.

27
Vocabulary
avdelfo,j( o` brother
ai;matoj( o` blood
ai;rw I take up
avpoktei,nw I kill
ble,pw I see
evsqi,w I eat
ko,smoj( o` the world
ploi/on( to, boat
suna,gw I come together

Exercises
Now it’s your turn! Parse and Translate:

~O avnqropoj blepei doulon)

Tekna evsqiousi karpouj)

~O avpostoloj avkouei ton avggelon qeou)

Blepw ploion)

Oi` avdelfoi tou avpostolou sunagousin avrtouj)

28
Chapter Eight: Conjunctions
The function of Conjunctions is to combine things. Some of the most common English conjunctions are
“and”, “but”, “or”, “as”, “if”, “for”, and “yet”.

Kinds of Conjunctions
Coordinating – These conjunctions join two (or more) elements. Example “Jack and Jill went up the hill.”

Subordinating – These conjunctions introduce dependent clauses.

Correlative – Multipart conjunctions. English examples include “neither… nor” and “not only… but also”.

Conditional – They introduce conditional clauses, but we will talk about these much later.

Common Greek Conjunctions

kai – the most used word in the Greek New Testament (used over 9,000 times!). Often translated “and”,
but can also be translated as “even” or “also”(depending on context).

te – a weaker from of kai. Often translated “and”

de – An adversative conjunction. Adversative conjunctions show some sort of contrast or break in

thought28. It is also Postpositive, which means that it CANNOT be the first word in a Greek sentence or
clause, but is usually translated first in English. Often translated “but”

avlla – strong adversative conjunction. It is a stronger than de, showing not a mere comparison but a
complete opposite. Often translated “but”. Sometimes you will see it as avllV if it comes before a word
beginning with a vowel.

gar – a subordinating conjunction that usually introduces a “ground or reason”. Like de it is

postpositive. Often translated “for”. The second word in John 3:16 is gar (but translated first) and it
gives the reason for verse 15. You could translate the two verses “That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life because God so loved the world…”

men de – A correlative conjunction usually showing some sort of comparison, often translated “on the
one hand… on the other hand”

Clauses
A clause is a basic building block of grammar. A clause is composed of a subject and a verb. The “Kernel
Clause” that was introduced earlier is the main clause of a sentence, but a sentence can have more than
one clause.

The basic types of clauses are Dependent and Independent clauses. Independent clauses contain a
complete idea and can stand alone. Dependent, or subordinate clauses cannot stand on their own and
are used to modify independent clauses.

28
Sometimes de will be used like an English comma. Paul was particularly fond of using de to denote items in a list.

29
Practice
avkouw teknon kai avnqrwpon

“I hear a child and a man”. Here the coordinating conjunction kai is used to combine two direct objects
teknon and avnqrwpoj.

avkouw teknon avkoueij de avnqrwpon

“I hear a child you hear but a man.” Close, but remember that de is a postpositive conjunction, so it
cannot come first in the sentence or clause, but is translated first in English. So the correct rendering
would be “I hear a child but you hear a man”.

men qelw karpon de evcw avrton

(check the vocabulary for avrtos)

“On the one hand I want fruit, but on the other hand I have bread.” We use the idiom on the one
hand…on the other hand to help translate the idea of men…de.

qelw karpon avllV evcw avrton

“I want fruit BUT I have bread.” The last sentence the speaker seemed to be debating wither or not to
acquire fruit even though he has bread. In this sentence the avlla rules out the possibility of getting fruit
because he has bread.

Vocabulary
avposte,llw I send out
a;rtoj( o` bread
li,qoj( o` stone
katabai,nw I go down
oi=koj( o` house
ouvrano,j( o` heaven
pro,swpon( to, face
sw,|zw I save
fe,rw I bear, carry
cro,noj( o` time

30
Exercises
Translate

Ferw liqon kai avrton)

VIwannhj kai Pauloj katabainousin tw oivkw|)29

Qeoj avpostellei avpos,tolous avll anqrowpoi avpokteinousin auvtouj)30

VEcw avrton dabid de qelei avrton)

~O ui`oj gar tou qeou sw|zei ta tekna avnqrwpwn)

29
Helpful hint: What case deals with location?
30 rd
3 person personal pronoun Masculine Accusative Plural means “them”. You’ll learn these later.

31
Chapter Nine: First Declension Nouns
The First Declension contains mostly Feminine Nouns.

Main Paradigm
This is the main paradigm for feminine nouns in the First Declension. This is the one to learn

Feminine Singular Feminine Plural

Nominative &h &ai
Gen/Abl &hj &wn
Dat/Loc/Ins &h| &aij
Accusative &hn &aj
Vocative &h &ai

Variations
Now that you are familiar with the main paradigm, we will talk about the variations on this paradigm. If
the stem of a noun ends with e i or r it will use this paradigm.

Feminine Singular Feminine Plural

Nominative &a &ai
Gen/Abl &aj &wn
Dat/Loc/Ins &a| &aij
Accusative &an &aj
Vocative &a &ai

But if the stem ends in s ll z x or y it will use this one

Feminine Singular Feminine Plural

Nominative &a &ai
Gen/Abl &hj &wn
Dat/Loc/Ins &h| &aij
Accusative &an &aj
Vocative &a &ai
Before you become too excited about having to learn three new paradigms, take a moment to look at
them. Notice that in some cases the h becomes a. So instead of learning three charts, learn the main
paradigm, but keep in mind that the h might change to a in some cases. And also notice the plural is the
same in all the paradigms.

But if you are ever asked to decline a First Declension Noun make sure you reference these charts to
know when to use h and when to use a.

32
Masculine First Declension Nouns
Not all First Declension nouns are feminine (though most are). Below is the paradigm for the masculine
nouns of the first declension.

Masculine Singular Masculine Plural

Nominative &hj &ai
Gen/Abl &ou &wn
Dat/Loc/Ins &h| &aij
Accusative &hn &aj
Vocative &a &ai
Notice that the plural forms are the same for the masculine and the feminine.

Feminine Article
One more chart for this chapter, the Feminine Article.

Feminine Singular Feminine Plural

Nominative h` ai`
Gen/Abl th/j tw/n
Dat/Loc/Ins th|/ tai/j
Accusative th/n ta,j
The article that is used to modify a word is not based on its declension but its gender. For example
profh,thj, a first declension masculine noun will take o` the masculine article.

33
Vocabulary
avga,ph( h` love
avlh,qeia( h` truth
basilei,a( h` kingdom
gh/( h` earth
grafh,( h` writing, Scripture
gunh,( h` woman
marturi,a( h` testimony
kefalh,( h` head
profh,thj( o` prophet
sofia( h` widsom

Exercises
Decline the following words

gh

avlhqeia

basileia

Translate

~H basilei,a yhj avpostellei avnqrwpoous a,lla h` basilei,a ouvranou avpostellei profhtaj)

o` profhthj grafei ton logon tou qeou)

~H gunh avgei ta tekna)

Ginwskw h` sofia kai h` avgaph tou qeou)

34
Chapter Ten: Adjectives and Particles
Adjectives
Adjectives are words used to describe a noun or other adjective. An adjective must agree with the word
it modifies in gender, number, and case.

Adjectives will use the case endings you already know. But, one of the main differences between the
forms of nouns and the forms of adjectives is that a noun has one gender, while an adjective can take on
any gender.

Let’s take the adjective avgaqoj (meaning “good”). If you were to look it up in a lexicon you would find
avgaqoj, avgaqh, avgaqon or avgaqoj,-h, -on depending on how your lexicon is formatted. This is the
lexicon’s way of telling you that this word is an adjective.

So let’s say I had a karpoj, but it was a good karpoj, I would describe it in Greek as avgaqoj karpoj. While
the basilei,a of Christ is a avgaqh basilei,a, and the mother had a avgaqon teknon.

In the feminine form it will follow the same rules about which endings to use despite which set of
feminine endings the word it is modifying is using.

Adjectives can be used in three ways.

Attributive – Most adjectives are attributively, that is they are describing a quality of the word
they modify. o` karpoj o` avgaqoj the good fruit.

Predicative – When the adjective is being used predicatively it is making a statement about the
noun it modifies. o` karpoj avgaqoj fruit is good.

Substantive – When an adjective acts substantively it is acting like a noun. Most often a
substantive adjective will be articular (modified by an article). o` avgaqoj kai o` kakoj the good
and the bad.

How do I tell if an adjective is attributive or predicative? This gets a bit tricky, so hold on. If the
adjective and the noun it modifies are articular (are modified by an article) it is attributive, as well as if
only the adjective is articular. If only the noun is articular it is predicative. Perhaps a chart will help.

article-adjective noun
Attributive
article-noun article-adjective
article-noun adjective
Predicative
adjective article-noun
If no articles are present context will determine whether the adjective is attributive or predicative.

For example o` kakoj karpoj means “the bad fruit”, as does o` karpoj o` kakoj (I don’t believe you will
see an article adjective article noun structure or o` kakoj o` karpoj in the New Testament).

35
While o` karpoj kakoj and kakoj o` karpoj mean “the fruit is bad”.

And karpoj kakoj and kakoj karpoj could mean either “bad fruit” or “fruit is bad” depending on
context.

Substantive adjectives are easier to identify. If there is no noun in the sentence or clause the adjective
can modify, it is probably substantive.

The Negative Particle

Particles are a collection of small Greek words that no one can agree on what they are. Some
grammarians will list adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions as particles, we will not.

At this point I will introduce only one particle (you will run across others later), the negative particle.

ouv is a negative particle that means “no” or “not”. When the priests and Levites asked John if he was
the Prophet he answered them ouv. 31

ouv changes to ouvk if it falls before word beginning with a vowel and a smooth breathing mark, but ouvc if
the word after it begins with a vowel with a rough breathing mark.

There are other negative particles, but they won’t come into play for a while.

Practice
evsqiw o` avgathoj karpoj

We see an article a noun and an adjective, so that leads us to the conclusion that this adjective is being
used attributively. So we translate it “I eat the good fruit”.

o` artoj a`gioj

Here we find an article a noun and an adjective, and according to the chart that means the adjective is
being used predicatively. So “the bread is holy”

pistoj avnqrwpoj akouei avgaqon profhthn

All the words in this sentence are anarthrous (they aren’t modified by articles), so we need to rely on
context to show us how the adjectives are being used. It could be either “a faithful man hears a good
prophet” or “a man is faithful hears prophet is good”. The first seems to make more sense, so the
adjectives are probably attributive.

31
John 1:21

36
 oi` nekroi ouvk evsqiei karpousi

Here we have an article, adjective, negative particle, verb, and then a noun. The adjective does not
agree with the noun, so it cannot modify it. In fact the adjective doesn’t modify any words in this
sentence, because it is being used substantively. Most often articulate adjectives standing alone will be
functioning substantively. so “the dead” or “the dead ones”, sometimes we will need to supply a word
like “one” or “ones” to a substantival adjective to make sense in English.

Next we have the word ouvk, which is ou being followed by a word that begins with a vowel and a smooth
breathing mark. And in this case the negative particle ou is functioning like and adverb (a word that
modifies a verb), negating it, so “eats not” or in a little smoother English “do not eat”.

So we put it all together to get “The dead ones do not eat fruit”.

37
Vocabulary
avgaqo,j( &h, ( &o,n good
a[gioj( &a ( &on holy
di,kaioj( &a ( &on righteous
kaino,j( &h, ( &o,n new
kakovj( &h, ( &o,n bad
kalo,j( &h, ( &o,n good, beautiful
mo,noj( &h ( &on only
nekro,j( &a, ( &o,n dead
pisto,j( &h, ( &o,n faithful
prw/toj( &h ( &on first

Exercises
Modify the following words using any adjective from the vocab list, then translate.

avggeloj

logwn

ploia

profhth|

sofiai

Translate

VEsqiw avgaqon karpon)

h` gunh h` kalh

h` gunh kalh

Qeoj krinei touj dikaiouj kai ta kaka)

~Ecw avrton avlla Dabid ovuk evcei avrton)

38
Chapter Eleven: Prepositions
Prepositions describe how words are related. This relationship can be temporal, logical, or locational.
“The cat was napping on the table.” “on” describes the location where the cat was napping, “on the
table”. Greek also has prepositions, and they can be a little tricky, but don’t worry you’ll catch on.

Greek prepositions DO NOT HAVE CASE. That may be an odd way to begin our discussion, but I repeat
Greek prepositions DO NOT HAVE CASE. But, they are used with words that have cases, and the cases of
those words are important.

Before we go any further, let’s look at some common Greek prepositions.

evpi, Genitive on, upon avna, Accusative up

Locative on, above avnti, Genitive against, instead of
Accusative over, across avpo, Ablative from
para, Ablative from (motion implied) eivj Accusative into
Locative beside evk32 Ablative out of
Accusative beside, along pro, Ablative before
pro,j Genitive for, for the sake of su,n Instrumental with
Locative at, near
Accusative toward, against

dia, Genitive through

Accusative because of
evn Locative in, at
Instrumental by means of
kata, Genitive down
Accusative along, according to
meta, Genitive with
Accusative after
peri, Genitive about, concerning
Accusative around
u`pe,r Genitive in behalf of
Accusative over
u`po, Ablative by means of
Accusative under

32
ek becomes ex before a vowel

39
Remember that I said that prepositions DO NOT HAVE CASE? Then why are cases listed in the charts?
That is because the flavor of the preposition changes based on the case of the object of the preposition.
For example take the word dia,, when its object is in the genitive case it takes the meaning “through”,
dia karpou “through a fruit”. But an accusative object will give it the meaning “because” dia karpon
“because of a fruit”. dia DOES NOT HAVE A CASE, but its object does.

Prepositional Phrases
A prepositional Phrase is made of a preposition, the object of the preposition, and all the words that
modify the preposition or its object. ~O avnqrwpoj evcei karpon evn avgaqw tw oivkw. “The man has a fruit
in the good house”. The prepositional phrase in this sentence is evn avgaqw tw oivkw.

Prepositional Prefixes
Like in English, Greek can have compound words. That is when two(or more) words are combined to
make a new word, English words like driveway (drive + way) or mudslide (mud + slide) are compound
words. Greeks would often add a preposition to the front of a word to alter the meaning. Recall the
word katabainw you learned in Chapter Eight. See the word kata? It is a combination of kata and
bainw, kata meaning “down” and bainw meaning “I go”. When a preposition is added to a word in this
manner it is called a prepositional prefix.33

Function of Prepositional Phrases

There are two basic ways that prepositional phrases function.

Adverbially – The phrase modifies a verb, as in the example above, evn and its phrase modify evcei. It tells
where the man has that fruit. This is by far the most common usage of the preposition and the
prepositional phrase.

Adjectivally – When the phrase modifies a noun or adjective (or some other substantive) it is being used
adjectivally. This usage is not particularly common.

Final Vowels
Notice some of these prepositions end in vowels. In many cases final short vowels will drop off (or
experience elision) when the following word begins with a vowel, just like avlla does. For example meta
will be seen as met’ (that last mark is not an accent or breathing mark it’s an apostrophe (see Chapter
Two). Keep this in mind and don’t be thrown when the word you are expecting is short a vowel.

33
Interestingly bainw does not appear in the New Testament without a prepositional prefix.

40
Practice
~Ecw karpon evn tw oinkw)

First off what case is evn? If you gave an answer other than looking confused and asking “I thought you
said prepositions ‘DO NOT HAVE CASE’” you are incorrect. That was a trick question, because
prepositions DO NOT HAVE CASE. But the object of the preposition evn does have a case. What is it? If
we look back at the big list of prepositions we find that evn can take an object in the instrumental or
locative cases. But locatives and instrumentals share a form, so we must determine the case through
context. Let’s try both on for size. “I have a fruit by means of the house”, or “I have a fruit in the
house”. Unless the speaker mortgaged his home to buy a fruit, the second seems to make more sense.

VAnabainw dia ouvranou)

You may be looking through your vocabulary lists and complaining that you can’t find the word
avnabainw, and if you did find it I need to fire my editor because I did not put it in any vocabulary list in
this unit. But take a look at the word. You should see the preposition avna and the word bainw
introduced earlier and should recognize avna is being used as prepositional prefix. bainw means I go and
avna means up, so avnabainw means “I go up”.

Now let’s look at the prepositional phrase dia ouvranou. We know that dia can take an object in either
the genitive or accusative case, and ouvranou is clearly in the genative case. So looking at our chart we
find that when dia is used with an object in the genitive case it takes the meaning “through”. So we get
the sentence “I go up through heaven”. Note that “heaven” can mean the sky, space, or the location of
the throne of God, and context will tell you which to use. If a pilot of an airplane says this he is referring
to the sky, Neil Armstrong would probably refer to outer space, and the angel Gabriel could be talking
about any one or all three.

In Mark 8:6 Jesus commanded the multitude to sit evpi thj ghj.

Here thj ghj is in either the genitive or ablative case. But we can quickly rule out the ablative case,
because evpi cannot take an object in the ablative case. So we see that Christ commanded the people to
sit “upon the ground”. Had He said evpi th| gh| He would have wanted them to sit “above the ground”(as
opposed to under it) or evpi thn ghn they would have sit “across the ground”, which makes no sense.

41
Exercises
Translate

Katabainw eivj oivkon)

~O qeoj swzei avnqrwpouj u`po tou ui`ou)

VAdelfoj Paulou ferwi liqouj evx oivkou)

~O anqrwpoj o` prwtoj evn tw| kosmw|)

42
Chapter Twelve: Personal Pronouns
I once had a classmate who asked “What’s a pronoun?” to which the student beside him answered “An
amateur noun that went professional.”

A Pronoun is a part of speech that takes the place of a noun (or other substantive). The Personal
Pronouns in English are “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, and their various forms. The Greek personal
pronouns are “evgw,”, “su,”, and “auvto,j”.

The noun (or other substantive34) that the pronoun replaces is called the Antecedent. The pronoun
must agree with its antecedent in gender and number but not case. This is because the pronoun may
function differently in the sentence or clause in which it is used than the antecedent did.

The first person personal pronoun evgw, and the second person personal pronoun su, do not inflect based
on gender, but the third personal pronoun auvto,j does.

Paradigms
First Person Personal Pronoun evgw,

Singular Plural
Nominative evgw, h`mei/j
Gen / Abl evmou/ or mou h`mw/n
Dat / Loc / Ins evmoi, or moi h`mi/n
Accusative evme, or me h`ma/j

Second Person Personal Pronoun su,

Singular Plural
Nominative su, u`mei/j
Gen / Abl sou/ u`mw/n
Dat / Loc / Ins soi, u`mi/n
Accusative se, u`ma/j

Third Person Personal Pronoun auvto,j

Masculine Feminine Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative auvto,j auvtoi, auvth auvtai, auvto, auvta,
Gen / Abl auvtou/ auvtw/n auvth/j auvtw/n auvtou/ auvtw/n
Dat / Loc / Ins auvtw|/ auvtoi/j auvth|/ auvtai/j auvtw|/ auvtoi,j
Accusative auvto,n auvtou,j auvth,n auvta.j auvto, auvta,

34
It is not just single words that can be antecedents, Paul will sometimes make clauses or the content of entire
chapters the antecedent of a pronoun.

43
Practice
If you have a firm grasp of personal pronouns in English, then Greek personal pronouns won’t give you
many problems. Here are a few sentences with their tranlsations.

VEgw ballw ton karpon)

Here the first person personal pronoun evgw stands in for me, and “I throw the fruit”.

Su evsqiej ton karpon)

The second person personal pronoun is you, and “you eat the fruit”.

Auvtoj kai auvth akouousi ton profhthn)

He and she hear the prophet.

~O profhthj krinei autouj)

The prophet judges them

44
Vocabulary
glw/ssa( h` tongue
e;scatoj( &h, ( &o,n last
eivrh,nh( h` peace
qro,noj( o` throne, chair
zwh,( h` life
o`doj( h` way, road35
ou=n conj. therefore
poie,w I do, I make
presbu,teroj( &a, ( &o,n older, elder
fwnh,( h` voice

Exercises
Auvtoj blepei me)

Auvth evsqiei ton avrton)

Su ou evxeij sofian)

Auvtoj avpoketinei authn en auvtw|)

Blepw ovdon zwhj ouvn katabainw auvthn)

35
This is a rare Feminine Second Declension Noun, keep this in mind.

45
Chapter Thirteen: Demonstrative Pronouns
Pronouns replace nouns, but demonstrative pronouns replace specific nouns. In English the
Demonstrative Pronouns are “this” and “that”. The demonstrative pronoun specifies what noun you are
talking about. And unlike other pronouns, demonstrative pronouns can function like adjectives.

Demonstrative Pronouns are divided into two groups Near and Far. In English the near is “this” and the
far is “that”. In Greek the near is ou-toj and the far is evkei/noj. Near and far can refer to the relationship
of the pronoun and the speaker in terms of location, or in terms of logic.

Near Demonstrative Pronoun ou-toj

Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative ou-toj ou=toi au[th au-tai tou/to tou/ta
Gen / Abl tou,tou tou,twn tau,thj tou,twn touvtou tou,twn
Dat / Loc / tou,tw| tou,toij tau,th| tou,taij tou,tw| tou,toij
Ins
Accusative tou,ton tou,touj tau,thn tau,taj tou/to tou/ta

Far Demonstrative Pronoun evkei/noj

Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative evkei/noj evkei/noi evkei,nh evkei/nai evkei/no evkei/na
Gen / Abl evkei,nou evkei,nwn evkei,nhj evkei,nwn evkei,nou evkei,nwn
Dat / Loc / evkei,nw| evkei,noij evkei,nh| evkei,naij evkei,nw| evkei,noij
Ins
Accusative evkei/non evkei,nouj evkei,nhn evkei,naj evkei/no evkei/na

Practice
Ouvtoj avnqrowpoj evsqiei evkeinov karpon)

“This man eats that fruit.” Here the pronouns are functioning like adjectives, telling you which man is
eating which fruit. It is pointing out a man who is near, either physically near to the speaker, or near
logically. If the speaker was telling a story about a man, the man in the story would be logically near, as
opposed to the person setting beside the speaker who is physically near. Likewise the speaker could be
talking about a person who is physically near as opposed to a man who is physically farther off, context
will tell. The same is true about “that fruit”.

VEkeinoj qelei avrton)

“That wants bread.” Here the far demonstrative pronoun is acting substantively, just like the personal
pronouns. But “That wants bread” don’t make good sense in English, so we need to add “one” or
something similar, just like a substantial adjective. “That one wants bread” is the smooth translation.

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Vocabulary
avnoi,gw I open
avpwqnh|,skw I die
dida,skw I teach
euvagge,lion( to, good news, gospel
h; conj. or
h`me,ra( h` day
qa,natoj( o` death
i`ero,n( to, temple
kavgw, and I
klei,w I shut

Exercises
Petroj kai Iwannhj katabainousin eij ton i`eron)

Au`th gunh didaskei evkeina tekna)

VEkeina tekna qelousin avrton)

Au`th h`mera su blepw ton ui`on tou qeou)

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