Greek First Declension Nouns

2008 May 6

Most first declension Greek nouns end in or η. All such nouns are feminine in gender. The long alpha is found only in words whose stems end in ε, ι or ρ. First declension nouns in /η are declined with the following endings:

Nominative in Nominative in -ᾱ
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative (nom.) -αι -ᾱ -αι
Genitive (gen.) -ης -ῶν -ᾱς -ῶν
Dative (dat.) -ῃ -αις -ᾱͅ -αις
Accusative (acc.) -ην -ᾱς -ᾱν -ᾱς
Vocative (voc.) -αι -ᾱ -αι

* To decline any noun, you should take the genitive singular form (which can be found in a proper dictionary entry) and remove the ending; to that stem add the appropriate ending for the case and number required.

Nouns have persistent accent, as a general rule. However, the plural genitive of first declension nouns always takes a circumflex on the ultima. And when the accent of the genitive singular is on the ultima, both the genitive and dative will take a circumflex accent, singular and plural. In addition, the plural declension marker -αι is always counted as short for the purpose of determining accent.

6 Responses leave one →
  1. 2008 May 6

    “All such nouns are feminine in gender.”

    George, “student” μαθητης is masculine.

  2. 2008 May 6

    Most first declension Greek nouns end in or η. All such nouns are feminine in gender.

    “All such” refers to first-declension nouns with the stated ending. And just to be clear, that is a reference to the ending in the nominative.

    Indeed there are also additional first declension nouns that are feminine, ending in a short alpha. And masculine first declension nouns ending in -ης/-ᾱς. Beyond your example, there are many other nouns in this category, for example, ποιητής, “poet” and νεᾱνίᾱς, “young man”. I intend to cover the declension of these in a future post.

    However, first declension nouns with a nominative ending in long alpha or eta are feminine.

  3. 2008 May 6

    I miss read your statement. Thanks for the clarification!

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  2. Greek First Declension Nouns - Variant 1 « σφοδρα - exceedingly

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