Question about I,U Stem Consonant Declension

Greek Learning Greek
1

Again, I have a question regarding the paradigms given in John W. White’s “First Greek Book” in this part:

http://daedalus.umkc.edu/FirstGreekBook/JWW_FGB51.html

In here, one of the examples in the paradigms don’t have an ‘s’ added to the stem in the Singular Nominative while all the others have ‘s’ added. Is this one word as an exception to the rule, or is there some other reason why there’s no ‘s’ given to “astu”?

2

There are two nouns in the vocabulary list that don’t have end in -ς in the nominative. What do they have in common that none of the other vocabulary items shares? Look at the vocabulary list closely.

3

These two?

ἄστυ, εως, τό town.
δόρυ, ατος, τό spear shaft, spear.

…uhm, is it that almost all nouns with u stems don’t have any s and that the exceptions have their i or u changed into e?

4

Check the gender of each word in the vocabulary list.

5

Uh, is this right?

If the u-stem noun is a neuter gender, it has no ‘s’ in the Singular Nominative. But if it is a feminine or masculine gender, it has an ‘s’?

6

You got it right. The neuter accusative, too (remember: the accusative of a neuter noun or adjective is always identical to the nominative, both in singular and plural).