Greek Grammar

I have adopted the "simple is better" view found at a site called New Testament Greek. The site also included an online Greek NT without any of the added markings, which can influence interpretation. Unfortunately the site no longer exists. Other material has been gleaned from various sources, including the excellent course at NT Greek In Session, which is more formal and takes a more classical approach.

Alphabet and Pronunciation

There are several views on pronunciation, but please read the article Here for discussion on pronunciation errors that have been carried into modern times, as well as the chart Here. I used to prefer a pronunciation that aided with spelling, but have now decided to use the modern pronunciation which has the advantage of being understandable by current speakers of Greek. In any case, what I have below is my attempt to convey the modern pronunciation.

There is an excellent audio pronunciation guide for "ethnic" or modern Greek Here, and you can hear a native speaker of Greek pronounce the alphabet Here.

Diphthongs (vowel combinations)

*(1st is as pronunced before vowel or β,γ,δ,ζ,λ,μ,ν,ρ; 2nd as before all other consonants)

γ-nasal (sound changes when γ precedes γ, κ, or χ)

Case (indicates function of a noun or pronoun and its accompanying preposition)

Tense (quality of verb expressing time and existence)

Voice (quality of verb expressing relationship to subject)

Mood (describes whether statement is fact, command, probability)

Prohibition (negative command)

Verbal (verb forms that act like nouns, adjectives, or adverbs)

Declension

Declension refers to the paradigm (pattern) of changes in endings for a word depending upon its case. In Greek there are three types of declensions:

The stem is the "root" or base of a word.

Within a declension there are three different paradigms, according to gender:

In this way, any particular delcension can be designated like so:

Declensions are also divided into two colums by number: singular and plural. Here are the paradigm charts:

There is a special paradigm for the article (Greek has only one, "the"):

The lexical form (dictionary entry) of a word is always the nom-masc-sing form. So, for example, the lexical form of the article by itself would be ὁ. (But if the article is not by itself, i.e. it appears before a noun, it is parsed according to the noun only, and not the other two genders.) To parse a word is to break it down into its grammatical components: case, gender, number, and lexical form.

Personal Pronouns (I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they)

Reflexive Pronouns (myself, yourself, him-her-itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves)

Punctuation

Some words can also be used as a substitute for punctuation, since Greek uses very little or none in the form of characters. For example, the word και can be used as a comma, a dash, or a period. The word λεγον can introduce a quote: Jesus said to them, saying come with me would be translated Jesus said to them, "Come with me".

Also, the "h" sound is not a separate letter but simply a rough breathing mark over a vowel (to the left for capitals), and is shaped like a reverse apostrophe: υἱος. The only other mark is a dieresis, which is two dots over a vowel (such as in προϊστημι,) to indicate that it is to be pronounced separately, that is, not as part of a diphthong. It may or may not also add the "h" sound; we can't tell from the word itself.