Re: Cases

From: Polycarp66@aol.com
Date: Sun Dec 26 1999 - 01:48:41 EST


In a message dated 12/25/99 3:34:32 PM Central Daylight Time, BGREEKNW@cs.com
writes:

<< Thanks for the help on my last question. My next question concerns "cases"
in
 Greek grammar. On page 46 number 201 of Herbert Weir Smyths' Greek Grammar
he
 says that there are "five cases: nomative, genetive, dative, accusative, and
 vocative. The genitive denotes "from" as well as "of", the dative denotes
 "to" or "for" and also "by", "with","on","at", ect. The other cases are used
 in Latin." Since I do not know Latin could someone clarify these for me and
 the Dative and Genetive as well.
  Do these represent past present and future cases of the word? and if so
what
 then is the aorist used for? >>

First, unless you are speaking of a participle or an infinitive (which
doesn't have a case in any event), you are confusing nouns and verbs. A
participle is a sort of noun in any event. Nouns have cases; verbs have
tenses.

The genitive became the most widely used of the cases. It designates
possession, origin, composition, agency, and many other functions Learn it
thoroughly.

The dative is roughly equivalent to our indirect object.

The accusative generally represents what we call the direct object in English
(there is no one-to-one correspondence though).

The vocative is a form of address. If I were to say, "John, please bring me
a pen", "John" would be a vocative.

This is greatly oversimplified, but you need to learn the basics first.

george

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