Accusative and Dative
Table of contents
Case Uses: Accusative and Dative
We continue our discussion of noun cases by exploring the accusative and the dative next. In traditional paradigm charts, accusative tends to come after dative (as you can see in the noun paradigm charts), but beginning with the accusative gives us a reference point to discuss the dative.
Accusative
Like the genitive, the accusative has many uses, but we’ll focus on one for now:
- direct object. With an active or middle voice verb, a noun in the accusative case can indicate that that noun receives the action of the verb.
- In such instances, the verb in question is usually transitive, which means that it’s an action that can be performed upon an object (e.g., “say”, “kick”, “see”). Compare this against intransitive verbs, which cannot take objects (e.g., “is”, “stand”, “happen”).
Note the qualification: accusative direct objects receive the action of active or middle verbs. Compare this against passive verbs, the action of which gets performed upon a subject:
- ἔβλεψαν τὸν κίνδυνον (masculine accusative singular). “They saw the danger.”
- The verb ἔβλεψαν (“they saw”) is 3rd pl. aorist active. “The danger” is a direct object of the active verb and thus is in the accusative case (τὸν κίνδυνον).
- ὁ κίνδυνος (masculine nominative singular) ἐβλέφθη. “The danger was seen.”
- The verb ἐβλέφθη is 3rd sg. aorist passive. “The danger” in this sentence is the subject of the passive verb and is thus in the nominative case.
Dative
Like the accusative and the genitive, the dative has many uses, but we’ll focus for now on one:
- indirect object. An indirect object in the dative case indicates a noun that gets affected by the action of the verb without directly receiving its action. The clearest example of this in English involves verbs like “to give” or “to say”:
He gives the rose to his wife.
In this example sentence, the action of “giving” is performed directly upon “the rose” – that is the noun that is being given, and thus “rose” is a direct object and in the accusative case. However, “the wife” benefits from the action of giving, but she herself is not the noun being given. So, “the wife” would be an indirect object and in the dative case.
She said the words to the witness.
In this sentence, there’s a similar relationship between the verb “says” and the indirect object “witness” – the witness isn’t directly being spoken (that function belongs to “words”, which is the direct object and thus would be in the accusative case), but the witness is indirectly affected by that action – hence, indirect object and dative case.
In such cases, it’s often best to translate the dative using the preposition “to” or “for.” These prepositions are essentially built into the core function of the dative – you do not need any explicit prepositions in Greek to get this idea across. Note how the second sentence looks in Greek:
εἶπε τοὺς λόγους τῷ μάρτυρι. She said the words to the witness.
In the Greek, the dative article-noun pair τῷ μάρτυρι translates in English to “to the witness” – we don’t need an explicit preposition in the Greek to indicate “to”.
English can also place indirect objects before direct objects without the use of “to” or “for.” Note this rearrangement of the first example sentence above:
- He gives his wife the rose. (original: He gives the rose to his wife.)
“Wife” is still not directly receiving the action of “giving”; it’s the rose that’s being given. So, despite the sentence’s rearrangement, the same functions for each noun apply: “wife” is the indirect object, and “rose” is the direct object. Be wary of word order in English; to figure out what is a direct object and what is an indirect object, ask yourself the question “what receives the action of the verb?” Your answer to that question is the direct object. You can also ask “who benefits from” or “who gets affected by the action of the verb without directly receiving the action?” Your answer to that question is the indirect object.
Dative and Accusative Endings
The following charts will indicate the dative and accusative endings by declension and subgroup, as the charts in the Nominative and Genitive did, but I will be including those endings here as well for the completeness of the paradigm. Bolded endings will indicate the new dative and accusative endings to add into your charts.
First Declension
| Long Feminine | Short Feminine | Masculine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. sg. | -ᾱ, -η | -α | -ᾱς, -ης |
| Gen. sg. | -ᾱς, -ης | -ης | -ου |
| Dat. sg. | -ᾳ, -ῃ* | -ῃ* | -ᾳ, -ῃ* |
| Acc. sg. | -αν, -ην | -αν | -αν, -ην |
| Nom. pl. | -αι | -αι | -αι |
| Gen. pl. | -ῶν | -ῶν | -ῶν |
| Dat. pl. | -αις | -αις | -αις |
| Acc. pl. | -ας | -ας | -ας |
Second Declension
| Masculine/Feminine | Neuter | |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. sg. | -ος | -ον |
| Gen. sg. | -ου | -ου |
| Dat. sg. | -ῳ* | -ῳ* |
| Acc. sg. | -ον | -ον** |
| Nom. pl. | -οι | -α |
| Gen. pl. | -ων | -ων |
| Dat. pl. | -οις | -οις |
| Acc. pl. | -ους | -α** |
Third Declension
| Masculine/Feminine | Neuter | |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. sg. | -ς, – | – |
| Gen. sg. | -ος | -ος |
| Dat. sg. | -ι | -ι |
| Acc. sg. | -α | same as nom.** |
| Nom. pl. | -ες | -α |
| Gen. pl. | -ων | -ων |
| Dat. pl. | -σι(ν) | -σι(ν) |
| Acc. pl. | -ας | -α** |
* Note the presence of the iota subscript in these endings. This iota subscript is a letter in and of its own right, and it is necessary when declining a noun into the dative singular in the first or second declension. It is particularly important in the first declension, since the presence or absence of an iota subscript can make the difference between the nominative and the dative case.
** Note that any neuter noun, pronoun, or adjective will have the same form/ending in the nominative and accusative within the same number. This means that a neuter noun will have the same form for nominative singular and accusative singular, and then the same form for nominative plural and accusative plural.
So, take for example the noun πρᾶγμα in the Week 3 Vocabulary above. Its neuter nominative singular form is πρᾶγμα, which means that its accusative singular form will also be πρᾶγμα – we do not decline the noun into the accusative singular by chopping -ος off the genitive form and adding an ending. Similarly, the nominative and accusative plural form of the noun is πράγματα.
Context will often help guide you towards figuring out whether a neuter noun is nominative or accusative. Take, for example, this sentence:
- ὁ παῖς τὰ πράγματα ἐποίησεν.
τὰ πράγματα can be either nominative or accusative. However, note the presence of an explicit nominative noun that cannot be any other case in the sentence: ὁ παῖς. Thus, by process of elimination, we can rule out nominative and parse τὰ πράγματα as an accusative direct object:
- The child does the deeds.
Third Declension Dative Plurals
Note that almost all the endings across the three declensions begin with a vowel. The one exception is the dative plural ending of the third declension: -σι(ν). The sigma that begins the ending often comes into conflict with a noun stem that ends in a consonant, and it often transforms the noun stem in interesting ways.
For example, note the noun παῖς, παιδός, in the Week 4 Vocabulary. The noun stem is παιδ-, but the δ of the stem and the σ of the dative plural ending conflict (the formation παιδσιν would have sounded odd to the Greeks). The sibillance (the hissing quality) of the σ carries more weight than the δ, so in the conflict, σ wins out, the δ disappears, and the dative plural form of παῖς becomes παισίν.
Note another example, though, in γυνή, γυναικός, from the Week 3 Vocabulary. The noun stem is γυναικ-, and the combination of stem plus dative plural ending would result in the form γυναικσιν. The κσ sound, however, actually constitutes a letter in the Greek alphabet: ξ. Thus, the dative plural of γυνή is γυναιξί(ν).
You can look at the complete noun paradigm charts to see other examples of the 3rd declension dative plural ending in action, but here are some general rules:
- If the noun stem ends in a velar plosive (γ, κ, χ), that stem consonant will contract with the -σ- of the dative plural ending to form the letter ξ.
- If the noun stem ends with a labial plosive (β, π, φ), that stem consonant will contract with the -σ- of the dative plural ending to form the letter ψ.
- If the noun stem ends with a rho, it will remain, and the -σι(ν) ending will simply get attached to that stem. For example, μάρτυς, μάρτυρος, has a noun stem of μαρτυρ-; thus, its dative plural form is μάρτυρσι(ν).
- The -σ- of the dative plural ending will sometimes knock out weaker dental consonants like δ, τ, or θ or combinations like ντ.
- Sometimes, such a knocking-out will result in a lengthening of the vowel left over at the end of the stem (for example, γέρων, γέροντος, has the stem γεροντ-; the -σ- of the ending knocks out the -ντ-, and the remaining ο (γερο-) lengthens into -ου-, and the final dative plural form becomes γέρουσι(ν)).
Noun Accents
Recall from the unit on alphabets and accents that the accent on nouns is persistent. This means that the accent wants to occupy the same syllable in the noun (antepenult, penult, or ultima), regardless of its inflection.
The accent’s position is most clearly seen in the genitive singular form of the noun. Wherever the accent falls in that form is where it tends to stay in the noun’s other inflections, but the accent is still subject to the same rules of length, movement, and transformation described in the accents unit.
For example, let’s take the noun γνώμη, γνώμης, from the Week 3 Vocabulary. The accent falls on the penult in the genitive singular form, so throughout the noun’s inflections, that’s where it will want to stay:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. | γνώμη | γνῶμαι |
| Gen. | γνώμης | γνωμῶν |
| Dat. | γνώμῃ | γνώμαις |
| Acc. | γνώμην | γνώμας |
Note the nominative plural form, where the accent changes from an acute to a circumflex; this is because the long ω in the penult is followed by a short ultima (the ending -αι, though a diphthong, counts as short for the purposes of accentuation). Therefore, the accent changes from an acute to a circumflex. (For the accentuation of the genitive plural form, see below.)
The concept of looking to the genitive singular for a noun’s accent position is crucial, particularly in 3rd declension nouns when the nominative and genitive singular forms don’t always have the same number of syllables. For example, note γυνή, γυναικός, f. - “woman, wife.” The nom. sg. form has only two syllables while the genitive has three, and without the latter form, we wouldn’t know that the noun’s accent persists on the last syllable:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. | γυνή | γυναικές |
| Gen. | γυναικός | γυναικῶν |
| Dat. | γυναικί | γυναιξί(ν) |
| Acc. | γυναικά | γυναικάς |
There are some general rules about where accents fall and how they change based on the declension of the noun:
- In first declension nouns, the genitive plural will always be accented with a circumflex over the ending: -ῶν.
- This is because the original form of the ending was -άων; the α and the ω contracted over time, and the circumflex reflects this contraction.
- If a first or second declension noun is accented on the ultima (i.e., the accent falls on the noun’s ending), that accent is a circumflex over the genitive singular, dative singular, genitive plural and dative plural endings; it is an acute elsewhere (or grave according to the regular rules).