Genitive case

Greek Learning Greek
1

One of my books is “Introduction to Attic Greek” by Mastronarde, and in Unit 3 he begins his explanation of the Greek cases. I have a basic question on the genitive case, and I’ll use the word “road” that he gave in an example. His example merely enumerated the case endings for singular and plural, and did not give an an example of how each case would show up in a sentence.

My question involves knowing when a noun takes the genitive case. For example, making up a sentence, “The boy likes to play in the road of my father.”, would it be correct to say that “road” in this case is not genitive, but accusative?

On the other hand, in the sentence, “Ten feet is the width of the road”. Would it be correct to say that “road” takes the genitive case here?

I’m using “of the” phrasing because, as I understand it, the english convention of 's does not have a direct representation in Greek. In the first example, internally I was thinking of the english equivalent “father’s road” (hence, “road” is not genitive), and in the second example, I was thinking of the english equivalent “road’s width” (making road genitive).

I only know about 4 Greek words at this point, and am only just getting into a definition of the cases. I’m aware that my question is extremely basic (even trivial?), but I’m operating without the aid of an instructor, and I’m afraid of getting off on the wrong foot by assuming something that is incorrect.

2

You are right that father would be in the genitive case. Road would not be accusative however. You will learn which case it should be in once you get to learn about prepositions.
If the sentence was; “The boy likes to play ball in the road of his father” than “ball” could be accusative.

Correct.

That is just a matter of how to say it in English. As long as you understand what it means in Greek, how you say it in English is of secondary importance. (Unless you are translating a book or something’)

Right on.

Basic yes, but absolutely not trivial. Basics are important because that is what a lot of other things are based on.

3

Bert, thanks alot. Your comments helped tremendously. I think I’ve got the nominative and genitive cases down now…at least to the point of knowing when and why each is appropriate. I admit I’m a little sketchy on the other 3 right now and need to study them. What thew me into a tizzy was the idea of an inanimate object (like a “road”) having a possesive case. It’s pretty ingrained into my thinking pattern that inanimate objects are not normally elevated to the point of owning anything. This is a general rule in english. A “road” can have attributes…the width of the road, the length of the road, and so on, but in english the road is not an owner. For example, “the wall’s paint is blue” is not conventional. I would say “the wall is painted blue”. The wall is not in possession of anything. This sort of thinking is unopposed by the grammar, since the genitive case in english is simply 's.

So, when I saw a genitive case for “road”, it threw me a little, and I realize now that I must reset my thinking a bit. In Greek, inanimate objects are owners at times. In a way, it makes sense, because originally in the Greek psyche the world and its components were looked at as living things…rivers and oceans were gods, a tree could be a mortal that was punished through tranformation, etc. Actually, I like that idea and will have no resistance to it at all.

4

Err, not exactly.

A road may not possess things in the sense that I possess, say, my books, but it still “has” things like qualities, etc.

Not only is 's a way to indicate the genitive, but the word “of” can, too:

the direction of the road = the road’s direction
the color of the wall = the wall’s color

You don’t need to personify things to grant them qualities they possess. Also, all the cases in Greek have several uses. Possession is only one for the genitive, though certainly that’s a common use for it.

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[blockqoute]
the direction of the road = the road’s direction
the color of the wall = the wall’s color
[/blockquote]

Annis, the problem is the difference between the two grammars. To the left of the equal sign, in english grammar, “road” is an object of the preposition. In fact, “of the road” is an adjectival phrase modifying “direction” … a far far cry from indicating ownership of the “direction”. To the right of the equal sign, however, “road” is clearly genitive in both grammars, with “road” owning “direction”, but that manner of phrase is not conventional with english. In Greek, however, there is quite a bit of personification going on with respect to qualities and nouns…Strife, Fear, Rumor, Beauty, and so on. The Illiad is filled with this, and it was exactly that epic that I was thinking of. You’re right, however, that there is much less personification (a lot less in fact) in Plato and Aristotle, and even the plays that have passed down. I’m just trying to build a mental convention that will work for me. The example above perfectly illustrates the conundrum. On both sides of the equal side, the idea is the same, but the parts of speech are different.

At some point in time, I’ll actually start to learn some Greek words, but I have to admit that the grammar is very new to me and interesting in its own right.

Edit: Hmm…I’m going to have to learn about the html tags

Edit: What I was trying to say in a roundabout way was that personifying the inanimate objects internally with a 's (in English) makes it easy for me to think in terms of the genitive case (in Greek) for those inanimate nouns. In effect, I have to, when thinking in Greek, ignore the english grammar for the possessive case, and at the same time think of the Greek genitive case in terms of phrasing like “direction of the road”, which breaks down completely differently in english.

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If personification works for you by all means use it :slight_smile: However, from the perspective of a native Greek speaker I must say I don’t understand what you are talking about. When I say “The road goes this way” ,“The direction of the road” or “the road’s direction” in English, I don’t see it road as personified in any of these cases :confused:

When you say "direction of the road " in Greek you use genitive true. It doesn’t mean that this genitive is not modifying “direction” though. In fact I think you will ask the same question in both English and Greek to get “of the road” as an answer.

Does it change if it is “He took the place of Tom”/ “Tom’s place” ?

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I’m not sure I agree with that statement. In fact, I think it is technically (at least traditionally) incorrect English grammar to say “of the road” because it should be “of the road’s”. Even in English the possessive case is correct. While I’ll admit that correct usage such as “of the road’s” is becoming so uncommon that some grammarians may even suggest that “of the road” is becoming the correct form, certainly with pronouns we continue to use the possessive case correctly here:

My book = “the book of mine” (possessive case)
NOT “the book of me” (objective case) [unless, of course, you mean a book about me, but that’s not the same as “my book,” and it illustrates why the possessive is needed in the first place.]

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I never knew that . With you example with the pronoun it does make sense.

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IreneY, I’m not entirely sure if I know what I’m talking about either.

“Does it change if it is “He took the place of Tom”/ “Tom’s place” ?”

No, that causes no problem for me…in fact, “Tom’s place” is the norm for that type of idea, but only because Tom is a person and so is expected to own things. “He took the place of Tom” would be a longer way of saying the same thing, but assigning Tom as being in the genitive case takes a bit of figuring out. In english the closest thing to the genitive case is the possessive, which is identified as 's. Also, in english, 's is not normally assigned to inanimate objects. I’ve only ever thought in english my whole life, so my problem here probably as more to do with the different psychologies associated with the two languages than with the actual grammar.

Now take this, for example: “He drove in the center of the road” versus “He drove in the road’s center”. In english, it is the second version that is awkward, because typically inanimate objects are not given the possessive case that directly. We would actually say it the first way. However, I would be assigning to “road” a different grammatical function, not possessive.

So, for the time being, until this comes more naturally, I’m trying to build an internal bridge that lets me identify a noun that I would not associtate as being possessive in english, and yet be able to identify it as being in the genitive case in Greek.

Sorry for the convoluted explanation. My thinking with this issue is very preliminary and I’m sure that it needs some tweaks.

10

edonnelly,

Unless you complete the fragment with

“the direction of the road lies north”

Here, it is the “direction” that is the subject. “of the road” is an adjectival phrase modifying “direction” specifying the direction of what.

You could even say “the direction lies north” and omit the road altogether if “road” is understood. I have to think very differently than I normally do to give “road”, when it is used this way, the genitive case, which is what I have to do to get in right in Greek.

11

I don’t understand how your example is any different. If you can say “the direction of the road lies north” and “the direction lies north,” then surely you can say “the road’s direction lies north.” [I’m not sure a direction can “lie” north, so they all sound a little funny to me, but the point is the same if you say something like the compass’s needle points north.]

I think it’s often more natural (though no more or less correct) to use the possessive this way. I would say “my car’s radio is broken” more than I would say “the radio of my car is broken”. It’s common to talk about the sun’s heat, the morning’s dew, the star’s glow, the boat’s motor.

I think the problem is that the possessive case is not well-named in Englished. The classic paradox for the grammarian is “the slave’s master.” Does the slave possess the master? What if you go shopping and look for men’s hats? “Men” don’t really “possess” the hats, it’s a grammatical relationship.

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To all. I think I’ve found a good way to explain the conundrum.

This thread’s comments have been written in english, which is perfect for my explanation. Here, do this test:

In all of the posts, many nouns have been written. Their placement is varied. Just these past two sentences shows that.

Now, go back to your posts, look at the nouns, and ask yourself which ones are in the possessive case (the english equivalent to genitive).

The correct answer is ONLY the nouns that were given a 's at the end.

In english, the possessive case is identified by a 's. There are ONLY two cases for nouns in english - a standard form of the noun, and the possessive form of the noun.

In english, it does not matter where the noun appears, if it is not spelled in the possessive case, then it is NOT in the possessive case, but in the standard form.

Taking “road”, there are two cases associated with this noun. The standard form “road” and the possessive form “road’s”. Period.

This is why I have to devise a system of some sorts (until it comes natural) when I take a noun and try to figure out whether it is genitive or some other case. In english there is no such conundrum because the only two cases are the standard form and the possessive, and the possessive has a distinctive apostrohpe at the end of the noun.

This is a major difference between the two languages. I suspect that the verb tensing and the standard parts of speech have much more similarity. However, this thing with nouns having 5 different cases is a completely new paradigm for the native english speaker.

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I like that.

Keep at it with the Greek – I’m just getting into it myself (but have been through similar issues when I first started learning Latin long ago – it has a very similar case system).

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edonnelly, the problem with “the road’s direction lies north” has nothing to do with the grammar, the grammar is correct. It has to do with convention. For a test, make of note of seeing how often in english you see inanimate obects given possession of something (with 's). i.e. "The road’s direction, the wall’s paint, the car’s door, the window’s crack, etc. All grammatically correct and definitely in the possessive case, but NOT conventional. I don’t write or think in those terms. To do so requires a changing in my thinking processess when it comes to language.

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edonnelly, great! I hope everyone else also now understands what I’m trying to overcome.

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Sure it is conventional. Every one has a bit different style of speaking so this may not be your way but it might be someone else’s.
Also, you don’t have to change your way of thinking. It won’t be long before the possesive aspect of the genitive case comes natural.
It is irrelevant if you want to translate the genitive in Greek with a possesive or a prepositional phrase as long as you know what it means when you read it in Greek.

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“Sure it is conventional. Every one has a bit different style of speaking so this may not be your way but it might be someone else’s.”

No argument. Now, the forms I listed (road’s direction, the wall’s paint, the car’s door, the window’s crack, etc.), are they conventional for you? Do you typically write those sorts of phrases in english? If so, then fine, at least I will then know that I am in disagreement with an individual and not a theoretical “others”.

In writing, I would prefer to use impersonal ways of describing attributes of inanimate objects … the blue wall, the wall is painted blue, the crack in the window, the window had a crack… etc) The wall and the paint have equal status. The window and the crack have equal status.

“the wall’s paint…the window’s crack” comes perilously close to what John Gardner, in his Art of Fiction termed “the pathetic fallacy”. Specifically, he was referring to personifying inanimate objects. These examples don’t do that exactly, but to me they are very unconventional. I just don’t come across it in writing or in normal conversation that much.

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I’ll jump to say in that my feeling is that, whatever equivalent between languages might mean, I don’t think the English possessive is the best equivalent to the Greek genitive – I think the “of” phrase is for a couple of reasons.

First, the semi-facetious point that the English possessive, whatever its history, is not really a case in contemporary English, and so is no more case-like than the of phrase. If 's were really a case ending, you wouldn’t be able to say things like the Queen of England’s crown.

Then there’s the fact that the Greek genitive has a number of uses it shares with “of” but not with the possessive – things like “a crown of gold” might be said with a genitive in Greek, but that wouldn’t be equivalent to “a gold’s crown.”

I agree with you too that there’s a tendency for the English possessive to be used with animate nouns (but only a tendency since I, at least, prefer “temple of Isis” to “Isis’s temple” and “the factory’s output” to “the output of the factory”), but this seems to be another reason to say that the Greek genitive is more like an “of” phrase than the possessive, since I’ve never seen any association between animacy and genitive in Greek.

Although, I agree that in the end you just have to learn what the Greek genitive signals in Greek, but I think it does share more with the English “of” phrase than the possessive, especially in its “main” use – plus, it’s not odd at all that a function that is signaled in one language by a case, in another language is signaled by a preposition.

19

As I start your test, I come upon my first example, in your own post:

Were you personifying the thread? It sounds perfectly natural, conventional, etc. to me.

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edonnelly, yes it seemed natural to me as well, because the thread is not completely inanimate, devoid of life, but a represention of our thoughts, and we are living human beings. So I gave the thread status as owning the comments. In that particular instance, given the point I was making in the thread, that was one case of the noun being in the possessive case. I might also write “the tree’s height” for the same reason, that the tree is a living object. My litmus test for this is the type of substance that the noun represents. I usually restrict the possesive case to living things. It’s just how I think in english. In this case, “the thread’s comments” the thread became a type of surrogate for all of us who are contributing to this thread.

However, the point I thought I had made is that the possesive case for a noun in english is distinguished ONLY by its having a 's at the end of it. For example, in “the width of the road”, the “road” is not in the posessive case. In Greek however, I have to use the genitive ending for “road” if I used that same exact phrase. Am I not making that clear?