Modern Greek/Lesson 03.2

Lesson 3.2: Gender of Nouns

In Lesson 3.1 we saw that in modern Greek there are three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Every noun has a gender. For some nouns this is obvious (like actor and actress in English), but for some it is less obvious. The endings of nouns often help to identify the gender, though there are many exceptions. Later we will see that adjectives have to agree with the gender of the nouns, as well as some of the question words. For now though, we introduce the definite article for each gender, and some common nouns.

Masculine nouns

Σκύλος, dog, is a masculine noun. Note the different forms of the definite article.

Example
Case	Singular	-	Plural	-
Nominative	ο σκύλος	the dog	οι σκύλοι	the dogs
Accusative	τον σκύλο	the dog	τους σκύλους	the dogs

Audio recording: Modern_greek_2a.ogg
NOTE: This recording was made by a non-native speaker of Greek.
We would be grateful to any native speaker who could redo it.

NOTE: Previously it was possible to drop the "ν" at the end of τον under certain circumstances. In Modern Greek (as of very recently) this is no longer true, and the masculine definite article should always be τον, though you will find lots of counter-examples still.

The ending -ος is the most common one for masculine nouns, and σκύλος demonstrates their regular pattern. Another noun in -oς is άνθρωπος (e.g. anthropology), human/man

Example
Ο σκύλος δαγκώνει τον άνθρωπο.	The dog bites the man.
Ο άνθρωπος δαγκώνει τον σκύλο.	The man bites the dog.

Audio recording: Modern_greek_2b.ogg
NOTE: This recording was made by a non-native speaker of Greek.
We would be grateful to any native speaker who could redo it.

Although -ος is by far the most common ending for masculine nouns, there are others, including -ας as in πατέρας, father, and -ης, as in ναύτης, sailor..

For example: Ο σκύλος δαγκώνει τον πατέρα. The dog bites the father.

Feminine nouns

The noun Η ώρα (the hour, the time) is shown below:

Example
Case	Singular	-	Plural	-
Nominative	η ώρα	the hour	οι ώρες	the hours
Accusative	την ώρα	the hour	τις ώρες	the hours

Audio recording: Modern_greek_2c.ogg
NOTE: This recording was made by a non-native speaker of Greek.
We would be grateful to any native speaker who could redo it.

NOTE: With the feminine accusative the final ν of την can be dropped under certain circumstances, but should be retained if the noun starts with a vowel, or κ, π, τ χ, θ, ξ φ, ψ, σ

Example
Πάω στην Θάλασσα	I go to the sea.
Πάω στη δουλειά	I go to (the) work.

NOTE: The presence of the additional sigma is because I'm going TO the sea, and σε + accusitive gets abbreviated, this will be explained more fully in TBC and serves only as a common example for now.

Neuter nouns

Το παιδί (the child) is an example of a neuter noun.

Example
Case	Singular	-	Plural	-
Nominative	το παιδί	the child	τα παιδιά	the children
Accusative	το παιδί	the child	τα παιδιά	the children

Below is an example of a sentence using the noun.

Example
Tο παιδί έχει το σκύλο.	The child has the dog.

Summary Table

A summary table of the definitive article. Note that the "ν" is kept only if the following word starts with κ,π,τ,ψ,ξ or a vowel.

Example
Case	Masc. Sing.	Fem. Sing.	Neut. Sing.	Masc. Plu.	Fem. Plu.	Neut. Plu.
Nom.	ο	η	το	οι	οι	τα
Gen.	του	της	του	των	των	των
Acc.	τον	τη(ν)	το	τους	τις	τα

Summary

• We have seen TBC.

Exercises

Now try the exercises here.

Modern Greek

Contents
Lesson 1 • Lesson 2 • Lesson 3 • Lesson 4 • Lesson 5 • Lesson 6 • Lesson 7 • Lesson 8 • Lesson 9 • Lesson 10
Vocab 1 • Vocab 2 • Vocab 3 • Vocab 4 • Vocab 5 • Vocab 6 • Vocab 7 • Vocab 8 • Vocab 9
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