Determining Genitive Masculine and Neuter, and Dative Plural Gender

[LearningGreek]

How do you tell if a noun is genitive masculine or nominative neuter? They both have the same article before the noun and the same case ending on the noun.

EDIT: Also, along this line, how do you tell what gender a dative plural is since all three have the same case ending (ων) and article (τῶν).

All of this is referring to first and second declension, I have not got to third yet.

Thank you.

[Stephen Carlson]

How do you tell if a noun is genitive masculine or nominative neuter? They both have the same article before the noun and the same case ending on the noun.

Something must be wrong in this question since the ending for the masc. gen. is -ου while the neuter ending is -ον, upsilon vs. nu (so make sure your nus are pointy).

EDIT: Also, along this line, how do you tell what gender a dative plural is since all three have the same case ending (ων) and article (τῶν).

Do you mean genitive plural? Generally, the best way to tell the gender is to look it up in the dictionary.

[Barry Hofstetter]

How do you tell if a noun is genitive masculine or nominative neuter? They both have the same article before the noun and the same case ending on the noun.

EDIT: Also, along this line, how do you tell what gender a dative plural is since all three have the same case ending (ων) and article (τῶν).

All of this is referring to first and second declension, I have not got to third yet.

Thank you.

If a noun is a particular gender, it is that gender in all cases. Most dictionaries and beginning texts will list a noun this way:

ποταμός, -οῦ, ὁ, river. The first form is the nominative singular, the second form shows the genitive (from which we get the stem of the noun), and the third is the article, which supplies the gender, here masculine. βασιλεία, -ας, ἡ, kingdom, the feminine article shows that the noun is feminine.

[Jason Hare]

Maybe he meant masculine accusative and neuter nominative/accusative. ??

[Shirley Rollinson]

How do you tell if a noun is genitive masculine or nominative neuter? They both have the same article before the noun and the same case ending on the noun.

EDIT: Also, along this line, how do you tell what gender a dative plural is since all three have the same case ending (ων) and article (τῶν).

All of this is referring to first and second declension, I have not got to third yet.

Thank you.

If a noun is a particular gender, it is that gender in all cases. Most dictionaries and beginning texts will list a noun this way:

ποταμός, -οῦ, ὁ, river. The first form is the nominative singular, the second form shows the genitive (from which we get the stem of the noun), and the third is the article, which supplies the gender, here masculine. βασιλεία, -ας, ἡ, kingdom, the feminine article shows that the noun is feminine.

Dear Learning Greek' - the rest of the sentence, or the general context in which the sentence occurs, will indicate the grammatical gender of eg. adjectives with -ων endings. We have the same ambiguity in English - "they", them", "their" do not indicate the gender of "they" (all guys? all gals? mixed bunch? bunch of inanimate objects?) - it doesn't give us much of a problem (until we meet someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' - to whom the question is "are you royal, pregnant, or do you have worms?

Don't try to hyper-analyze things - read the whole sentence and its context, and get a feel for what makes sense.

Shirley Rollinson

[LearningGreek]

Maybe he meant masculine accusative and neuter nominative/accusative. ??

Sorry, I mean genitive singular, masculine (οῦ) and neutor (οῦ). The articles for them are the same as well τοῦ.

The articles on the example you gave are different even though the case ending is the same. With the genitive singular the articles and case ending are the same.

[Stephen Carlson]

Maybe he meant masculine accusative and neuter nominative/accusative. ??

Sorry, I mean genitive singular, masculine (οῦ) and neutor (οῦ). The articles for them are the same as well τοῦ.

Outside the nominative and accusative, the masculine and neuter will the same.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Maybe he meant masculine accusative and neuter nominative/accusative. ??

Sorry, I mean genitive singular, masculine (οῦ) and neutor (οῦ). The articles for them are the same as well τοῦ.

The articles on the example you gave are different even though the case ending is the same. With the genitive singular the articles and case ending are the same.

Did you get the point that a noun is always the same gender no matter what case it takes?

[LearningGreek]

Maybe he meant masculine accusative and neuter nominative/accusative. ??

Sorry, I mean genitive singular, masculine (οῦ) and neutor (οῦ). The articles for them are the same as well τοῦ.

The articles on the example you gave are different even though the case ending is the same. With the genitive singular the articles and case ending are the same.

Did you get the point that a noun is always the same gender no matter what case it takes?

I did not get that. Thanks for pointing that out.

Bill mounce states that you can use the article to help determine the gender of a noun since they are unique unlike the case endings.

My confusion is that some of the articles are the same for masc and neut. So when I am going through the workbook parsing a word, I do not know if I should parse it as masc or neut since its case ending fir masc and neut is the same and the article for masc and neut is the same.

[James Spinti]

When you are learning vocabulary, you should learn the gender (based on the article in the nominative singular), as well as the meaning. If you have any experience with modern languages that have gender, e.g., German, that should help.
For example: θεός, -οῦ, ὁ God, god. The first item is the lexical form. The second is the genitive singular, which attaches to the stem: θεοῦ. The third item is the article, which is masculine. No matter what form you encounter, θεός will always be masculine, not neuter—even when the forms of the article are identical.