Talk:Attic Greek

Polytonic template needed

This article asserts that there is no indefinite article in Attic Greek, but indeed the particle tis, ti functions as often as two different kinds of indefinite article as it does an interrogative pronoun. I may amend this myself if someone would kindly inform me how to use the Greek alphabet in Wiki.

All the Greek words and phrases need the Polytonic template adding to make them visible in Internet Explorer. I may get round to doing this myself some time. --rossb 18:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, why don't you? The sooner the better. And you are right about the particle. The concept that there is no indefinite article is so well established though that it might be better to present it as a periphrasis, a "work around". The definite article you know developed out of the demonstrative adjectives. There was no need for an indefinite article because Indo-European had no definite article. Once it came, in, then you had to invent a way to get indefinite again. Now, if you open the article for editing you will see some selectable Greek characters. The tis and the ti are enclitic so they do not take an accent. You might be able to do that part without the polytonic template. Best wishes.Dave 18:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I had some further thoughts on the indefinite article. The Greeks could also signify indefiniteness by leaving off the definite article. The first part of the gospel of John has "En arche en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos". Most interpret "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god." But that is not what it says. The last theos has no article and therefore might be indefinite. It might mean "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was a god." In fact that is the interpretation of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who are not Trinitarian. This is not the time or place for religion, but I just wanted to point out an instance of the indefiniteness of the deficit of the definite. You might ask "tis estin ekeinos;" "who is that man?" and get a wise-guy answer "anthropos" "a man".Dave 18:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Order of cases

Excuse me I don't want to offend anyone but the traditional order of cases when you list a Greek paradigm is Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative and Vocative. I'm sure there is plenty of room in the field for creative presentation but in this case the dictionaries give the nominative and then a second case, which everyone assumes is the genitive and in fact the author(s) of the dictionary assumes everyone assumes it is the genitive. Moreover the same order is traditional in Latin as well, except, of course, it adds the ablative. When we go down through our lists memorizing our paradigms, as everyone has to do, so we can perform our mental lookups (unless we are very skilled and can think in ancient Greek), it would not be too useful to have some students going haw, hay, taw; too teys, too; tow tey tow; ton, teyn, taw, etc., and others going haw, hay, taw; ton, teyn taw, etc.. Not only that but when the modern languages present what is left of their cases it is always in the same order: nominative, possessive, dative, objective.

Gosh I know the nominative and accusative are very similar and the vocative even more similar still but there is a tradition here and you can't depart from it without bringing down the taxis of the kosmos, so play along, will you? Thanks. I'll change those tables when I get a chance, but meanwhile maybe we should have a look at the next topic.Dave 04:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Proper topic

My guess is the author already perceived the problem with this topic and has halted work while he/she figures it out or else got discouraged and went away. What are we trying to do, type in a textbook in ancient Greek? Why not just buy one or go to the tutorials on the Internet? If you are going to learn Greek from Wikipedia you will be straining your eyes from looking at the screen all the time and not only that but it may not be convenient to carry around a computer so you can learn Greek from Wikipedia. I don't think we should be aiming at putting a textbook in here and it won't fit anyway, not by a long shot. Wikipedia can't do everything.

I've seen rough summaries of language features both on-line and in encyclopedias such as Britannica. We just want to give the ordinary person an idea of what Greek is like if he or she should want to learn any (a commendable task). So we will have to decide how much is too much. Not only that but let's not get carried away with the the fact that Attic has been a standard. This is supposed to cover Attic Greek as opposed to some other dialect rather than being a total course in ancient Greek.Dave 04:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Show stopper

I just discovered that the grammar part of this article is duplicated under Ancient Greek grammar. So, the proper thing to do it seems to me is go through here excising the duplicate materal that has to do with the ancient Greek language rather than the Attic dialect. That will leave more room to cover the dialect. So, most of what I have said in the discussion page is not really relevant in light of that intent. I will have to go through here slowly and carefully to get it more into a dialect article and cut out the duplication. This will take time, but feel free to jump in yourself.Dave 04:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate Material

I put this duplicate material here if anyone wants it.Dave 04:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Nouns

Attic Greek nouns have three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative). There are three major divisions of noun declension: the "First Declension", more aptly called the alpha-declension, which in Attic is divided into five subdivisions; the "Second Declension", or omicron-declension (also known as the thematic declension); and the "Third Declension", an umbrella grouping of a large and reasonably diverse assortment of consonant-stem paradigms.

Alpha Declension

The alpha declension is predominantly, but not exclusively, feminine. Nouns belonging to the alpha declension have stems ending in alpha, short or long. In certain circumstances the alpha may change its length or become eta.

In the table below of feminine nouns there are three examples: long-alpha stem (ᾱ-stems), short-alpha stems (α-stems), and a stems which can end in eta (η-stems).

	Feminine
	ᾱ-stems (χώρᾱ 'land')			α-stems (Μοῦςα 'Muse')			η-stems (τῑμή 'honor')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	χώρᾱ	χώρᾱ	χώραι	Μοῦσα	Μούσᾱ	Μοῦσαι	τῑμή	τῑμᾱ́	τῑμαί
Vocative	χώρᾱ	χώρᾱ	χώραι	Μοῦσα	Μούσᾱ	Μοῦσαι	τῑμή	τῑμᾱ́	τῑμαί
Accusative	χώρᾱν	χώρᾱ	χώρᾱς	Μοῦσαν	Μούσᾱ	Μούσᾱς	τῑμήν	τῑμᾱ́	τῑμᾱ́ς
Genitive	χώρᾱς	χώραιν	χώρῶν	Μούσης	Μούσαιν	Μουσῶν	τῑμῆς	τῑμαιν	τῑμῶν
Dative	χώρᾳ	χώραιν	χώραις	Μούσῃ	Μούσαιν	Μούσαις	τῑμῇ	τῑμαιν	τῑμαῖς

The short alpha stem is not present in masculine nouns, thus only ᾱ-stems and η-stems are declined.

	Masculine
	ᾱ-stems (ταμίᾱς steward)			η-stems (ποιητής poet)
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ταμίᾱς	ταμίᾱ	ταμίαι	ποιητής	ποιητᾱ́	ποιηταί
Vocative	ταμίᾱ	ταμίᾱ	ταμίαι	ποιητά	ποιητᾱ	ποιηταί
Accusative	ταμίᾱν	ταμίᾱ	ταμίᾱς	ποιητήν	ποιητᾱ́	ποιητάς
Genitive	ταμίου	ταμίαιν	ταμίῶν	ποιητοῦ	ποιηταῖν	ποιητῶν
Dative	ταμίᾳ	ταμίαιν	ταμίαις	ποιητῇ	ποιηταῖν	ποιηταῖς

Omicron Declension

Nouns in the omicron declension can be masculine, feminine, or neuter, though they are predominantly masculine and neuter. Masculine and feminine nouns are declined alike.

	Masculine and Feminine stems (λόγος 'word')			Neuter stems (δῶρον 'gift')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	λόγος	λόγω	λόγοι	δῶρον	δώρω	δῶρα
Vocative	λόγε	λόγω	λόγοι	δῶρον	δώρω	δῶρα
Accusative	λόγον	λόγω	λόγους	δῶρον	δώρω	δῶρα
Genitive	λόγου	λόγοιν	λόγων	δώρου	δώροιν	δῶρων
Dative	λόγῳ	λόγοιν	λόγοις	δώρῳ	δώροιν	δῶροις

The Article

Attic Greek has only a definite article, which declines with its noun. It does not have an indefinite article which can be translated as "a(n)," "some," or "a certain." Frequently proper names take the definite article.

The definite article in Greek admits certain constructions that are now found in familiar modern European languages. A common construction is a definite article followed by a definite article in the genitive, the noun in the genitive, and finally the noun of the first article. For example: τὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔργον. Literally "the (of the man) deed", the English sense is "the deed of the man." This sort of construction is a relic of the definite article's earlier status -- clearly evident in the Homeric texts -- as a demonstrative pronoun. Attic also makes frequent use of this sort of construction with prepositional phrases and even with adverbs (e.g., αἱ νῦν γυναῖκες, literally "the now women", i.e., "modern women"). The demonstrative force is so strong that the noun can often be dispensed with altogether: e.g., οἱ μετά τινός, literally "the (MASC. PL.) with someone", i.e., "the comrades of" so-and-so.

The definite article is declined thus:

	Masculine			Feminine			Neuter
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ	τώ	οἱ	ἡ	τά	αἱ	τό	τώ	τά
Accusative	τόν	τώ	τούς	τήν	τά	τάς	τό	τώ	τά
Genitive	τοῦ	τοῖν	τῶν	τῆς	ταῖν	τῶν	τοῦ	τοῖν	τῶν
Dative	τῷ	τοῖν	τοῖς	τῇ	ταῖν	ταῖς	τῷ	τοῖν	τοῖς

Verbs

Verbs have three numbers (singular, dual, plural), three persons (first person, second person, third person), seven tenses (present, imperfect, aorist, future, present perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), two aspects (simple (or aorist) and continuous), three voices (active voice, middle voice, passive voice), and four moods (indicative mood, imperative mood, subjunctive mood, optative mood). Note that the aorist construction is more than a tense: with the augment it is a tense and an aspect: past simple; without the augment (as is the case for participles, infinitives, and imperatives) it signifies simple aspect only.

Tranferred old discussion about Classical Attic

[[1]] Someone put in a Stub indicator for this short article immediately after I wrote it.

But really, there's nothing more that should be said here.

Someone looking for this term should get an explanation of the term, and a referral to one or more articles in which the subject is dealt with in a larger context.

It also shouldn't be an automatic referral because Classical Attic is distinct (as a subset) from Attic dialect. A referral defines them as equivalents.

It's kind of like a Disambiguation page -- but disambiguation within one subject.

It should be just what it is: a short article that defines a superset or subset of something discussed in another article or articles, and then gives you a link or links for further information.

This Classical Attic article is a sub-set example, for a super-set example, see Attic-Ionic.

Would it be unsuitable to replace this with a redirect either to Attic-Ionic or Attic Greek? I see what you mean with the stub classification being kindof redundant, and thats why I am having a hard time with this article... A larger article on different forms of the greek language or Dialects of Ancient Greek with alot of redirects to it might be a better idea? Thoughts? I'm a bit of a mergist, and I don't really think that if a topic will never grow beyond a couple of sentences it needs its own article. Also, please sign your posts on talk pages with four '~' symbols in a row..., it adds the standard sig, just like this one: Usrnme h8er 13:35, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Map

Looks like hell on the article page. Every map I see in WP looks worse than the last, and usu. (not this instance) provides less and less info. 71.164.206.36 (talk) 17:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Please take note that

R is a vowel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.40.180.138 (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2011 (UTC)