Nouns
The Parsing Code for nouns is as follows: Part of Speech, Case, Number (Singular or Plural), Gender (Masculine, Feminine or Neuter) Examples: N-ASM stands for Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine N-NPF stands for Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine N-GSN stands for Noun, Genitive, Singular, Neuter Ex: Declension for ανθρωπος (man): Cases: Nominative Genitive Ablative Dative Locative Instrumental Accusative Vocative
Singular: man of man from man to man in man by man man man
Plural: men of men from men to men in men by men men men
1. A word in the Nominative case is part of the Subject or Subject Complement. This includes any words directly describing the subject. T-NSM A-NSM N-NSM V-PAI-3S The green frog is jumping. Subject/Subject Compliment: The green frog - all three words carry the nominative tag. (They agree in case, number and gender.) 2. A word in the Accusative case is the Direct object of the sentence. It receives the action of the subject. T-NSM N-NSM V-AAI-3S T-ASM N-ASM The hunter shot the moose. Direct Object: The moose is directly receiving the action of the hunter (subject). 3. For translating purposes we combine a number of cases • Genitive and Ablative cases are combined into one: “Genitive” translated as of or from • Dative, locative, and instrumental cases are combined into one: “Dative” translated as to, in, by or with
4. A Dative can take the position of an Indirect Object. It indirectly receives the action of the subject. T-NSM the
N-NSM apostle
V-PAI-3S is saying
N-APM words
A-DPM to the
N-DPM men.
The phrase “to the men” = indirect object the apostle = subject words = direct object 5. Both Dative and Genitives form Prepositional Phrases in English. A prepositional phrase gives added information. Prepositional phrases are divided into two groups: (a) Adjective: modifies a noun or pronoun. (b) Adverb: modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It answers the questions of How? When? Where? and Why? (Not all adjectives and adverbs are prep. phrases though.) 6. The Vocative case is equivalent to a noun of “Direct Address” in English. Example: “Peter, do you love me?” The noun “Peter” is vocative. 7. The Greek language is a highly inflected (words with endings to show case, gender and number) language. Nouns are inflected to show relationship. •
The Subject of the sentence must agree with its verb in number.
Any word which is directly modifying a noun must also agree in gender, number and case.
•
This is very helpful in determining what is being spoken about. 8. There is no indefinite article (a, an) in the Greek language. ανθρωπος simply means "man" or "a man". It does not mean "the man". Greek does have a definite article (the). ο ανθρρωπος means "the man". It is speaking of a definite, specific man, not to any/every man. Do not insert an English "the" in the translation unless the Greek article appears. 9. In translating Greek, do not pay attention to the word order, but rather to how the words relate. Understand the sentence by understanding the grammar.