Well…“First Greek Book” by John W. White didn’t have anything about the OI diphthong nouns in Lesson 55. I only noticed the oi diphthongs when I browsed “Greek Grammar” by Herbert Weir Smyth for any more info about the diphthong consonant declensions.
And then I saw that apparently oi is slightly different from eu, au and ou in being declined, but since only 1 example is given I’m not sure if what I think is done with oi is right.
So…is the following right for the oi diphthong stem consonant declensions?
Singular Nominative: Turn oi into…well…the long o.
Singular Genitive: Add os to the noun stem.
Singular Dative: Add I to the noun stem.
Singular Accusative: Add a to the noun stem.
Singular Vocative: Add I to the noun stem.
Also, what does Smyth mean with the words “Dual and Plural are wanting” in page 70 of his book? As in, there are no duals or plurals that have oi stems?
You seem to have mixed up stems in -οι and -ω. The οι-stem words (all feminine) are inflected
N. ἠχώ
A. ἠχώ
G. ἠχοῦς
D. ἠχοῖ
V. ἠχοῖ
As Smyth says and you say, they do not really have dual and plural. (There apparently are a few mentions in grammarians and a few stray word here and there like in Hes. Th. 274, but you needn’t care about them.)
…ok this is Smyth’s example in page 70.
Singular Nominative: pei(th)(long o)
Singular Genitive: pei(th)ous [peit(th)o-os]
Singular Dative: pei(th)oi [pei(th)o-i]
Singular Accusative: pei(th)(long o) [pei(th)o-a]
Singular Vocative: pei(th)oi
…uhm…is the following correct? Or am I still misunderstanding something after two days of staring at the underlined…which I now think is because I did something wrong by making the mistake of staring at the singular accusative for the noun stem when its supposed to be look at the singular genitive for the noun stem.
- Since the noun stem is the singular genitive minus the case ending, then remove the us, so I end up with exo for the noun stem, right?
- The singular accusative and nominative is add a to the noun stem, so exo plus a equals ex(long o).
- Singular dative and vocative is add i to the noun stem, so exo plus i equals exoi.
Also, how on earth did o plus os turn into ous? There’s nothing about o plus os in the table of vowel contractions Smyth provided.
Don’t worry about understanding how the forms of this declension arose at this point in your study–just learn the forms, and learn them in the order you’re used to (N G D A V). You won’t encounter this declension very often, and there’s no dual or plural to worry about. There are a few common nouns, but a number of women’s proper names, such as the famous poetess Σαπφω (Sappho).
how on earth did o plus os turn into ous?
ο + ο > ου is the normal contraction.