Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
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3: Nouns and Their Cases<br />
An Introduction to Cases<br />
Notice that 5 different cases are signaled by these endings. Think of these cases as<br />
the roles played in the sentence above [O Teacher, angels are giving crowns of gold<br />
to children]. At the moment, we’ll study only the most prominent and most frequent<br />
roles suggested by the cases:<br />
The Nominative Case:<br />
Words in the nominative case will be identifying more particularly the person(s)<br />
already implied by the verb. You remember that the forms of in the last chapter<br />
already identify “Doers” in a general way (I, you, he/she/it, we, y’all, they). Usually<br />
the speakers and listeners (rst and second persons: I, you, we, ya’ll) already know<br />
who they are, and need no further identication or description. But persons or<br />
things that are spoken about (third persons: he/she/it, they) typically need further<br />
identication through the use of nominatives (unless the general context makes it<br />
clear).<br />
<strong>Greek</strong> Expression<br />
Translation<br />
ambiguous He/she/it is giving…<br />
clearer An angel is giving… or…<br />
<br />
An angel is giving…<br />
ambiguous They are giving…<br />
clearer Angels are giving… or…<br />
<br />
Additional Notes about the Nominative:<br />
Angels are giving…<br />
1) You should now see how <strong>Greek</strong> can be more exible than English in word<br />
order. Observe that the <strong>Greek</strong> words and can appear<br />
before or after the verb without creating confusion because they have been<br />
“tagged” as nominatives, as the “Doer(s)” in these sentences.<br />
2) You also should notice that English does not allow redundancy, a<br />
“doubling up”, when translating third person verbs (he/she/it, they) which<br />
are further claried by a nominative:<br />
<br />
<br />
NOT An angel he is giving…BUT An angel is<br />
giving…<br />
NOT Angels they are giving…BUT Angels are<br />
giving…<br />
But if it is a rst or second person (of the verb) that is being claried by a <strong>Greek</strong><br />
nominative, English needs to retain (in translation) the rst or second person pronoun<br />
for the sake of clarity:<br />
μ<br />
<br />
The Accusative Case:<br />
We angels are giving…<br />
You angels are giving…<br />
Something found in the accusative case usually functions as the Patient undergoing<br />
something. To put it another way, we might say that Something or Someone ‘got<br />
blank-ed’ in a sentence. But just how much the Patient was affected or changed by<br />
the event… can only be determined by the content of the sentence (and the discourse)<br />
as a whole. Consider the following examples of “Patients” in these English sentences:<br />
English Sentence with a coyote as the Patient<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mr. Wilson shot and killed a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Thompson trapped a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Ms. Prince fed a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Lance sheltered a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Ms. Brock raised a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Smith saw a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Earle smelled a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mrs. Grant touched a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Crooks petted a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mrs. Jackson imagined seeing a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
Mr. Alexander remembered a coyote in the grocery store.<br />
37
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