[B-Greek] Case definitions

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Oct 9 07:43:21 EDT 2003


At 6:53 PM -0700 10/8/03, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>If it is not too much trouble, I was wondering if
>someone might be able to give me good definitions of
>these terms. The grammar I looked at used them but
>really did not clearly define them for the reader. I
>am assuming that these terms are what the very ancient
>Greeks gave to them.

I think these are terms used by Hellenistic grammarians; these adjectives
are used in a readily-intelligible manner, I think. I'll give brief
comments on them.

>The Cases:
>
>PTWSIS ORQH, EUQEIA, ONOMASTIKH (Nominative)

PTWSIS is the word for "case", the English word having been derived from
the Latin equivalent of PTWSIS, "casus" and both the Greek and Latin words
having the sense "falling" or "inclination downwards." See my archived
message from August 1 of this year for the rationale of this scheme.
ONOMASTIKH and the Latin equivalent "Nominativus" from which the English
word derives mean "naming"--the case in which names/nouns are presented
(particularly as subjects of clauses or as names/nouns equated with
subjects of clauses).
ORQH and EUQEIA  mean "upright" or "straight." See my archived message
below; this is based upon the notion of the Nominative and Accusative as
perpendicular to each other, the Nominative being vertical, the Accusataive
horizontal and so at 90-degree angles from each other on the plane.

>hH GENIKH PTWSIS (Genitive)

GENIKH describes the "Genitive" case as fundamentally concerned with GENOS
or classification, sort, category, kind.

>hH AFAIRETIKH PTWSIS (Ablative)

AFAIRETIKH means "taking away" (APO + hAIREW); the Latin "Ablativus" has
the same meaning; this describes what was originally, historical Linguists
believe, a distinct case indicating separation or movement away from some
point; in Greek it merged at some point in the early history of the
language with the Genitive and is recognizable in the functioning with the
genitive of prepositions such as EK, APO, CWRIS, etc. and with verbs of
separation such as CWRIZW, AFAIREW.

>hH TOPIKH PTWSIS (Locative)

TOPIKH means "having today with TOPOS, "place." This describes the function
of what historical Linguists believe was originally a distinct case
indicating stationary position in space or time. Sometime early in the
historical development of Greek it came to use Dative case endings. Its
function is evident in prepositional phrases with EN especially, but also
with EPI and PROS when those are used to specify stationary position.

>hH CRHSTIKH PTWSIS (Instrumental)

CRHSTIKH means "having to do with instrumentality or utility. Historical
Linguists believe that this was originally a distinct case that also served
to indicate accompaniment (prepositions such as SUN, hAMA), so that some
call it the "instrumental-comitative" or "instrumental-sociative" case. It
merged early in the historical development of Greek with the Dative
case-endings.

>hH DOTIKH PTWSIS (Dative)

DOTIKH and "Dative" mean "having to do with giving." Grammarians associate
the original meaning of the Dative with grammatical functions of indirect
object, reference, generally (but not exclusively) notions that require
English "to" or "for" prepositions with objects. Of course the TOPIKH and
CRHSTIKH as case-FUNCTIONS are represented by the case-endings of the
DOTIKH.

>hH AITIATIKH PTWSIS (Accusative)

AITIATIKH and Latin "Accusativus" are evidently intended to describe the
function of this case as indicating the person or thing "predicated" by the
verb, that is to say, what traditional grammar calls the "direct object."
Of course we are well aware that this describes only a small portion of the
functions of the "accusative," which I'd prefer to describe as indicating
the LIMIT or TERMINAL POINT of efficacy of a verb, adjective, or adverb.

A.T. Robertson in his big grammar has discussions of these traditional
names for the cases that are instructive; he does the same with traditional
Greek & Latin names for the other grammatical categories, noting in the
case of several of them that they are not very adequate for describing what
the range of functions of the grammatical category referred to actually is.

archived message:
===============
>Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 13:00:51 -0400
>From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>Subject: [B-Greek] Rationale for NGDA case-order in declension
>
>The rationale for the order Nom-Gen-Dat-Acc goes back, I think, to
>antiquity, although I'm not sure who was its PRWTOS hEURETHS, as the Greeks
>termed the discoverer or inventor of any device. It's related to the very
>word "case" which itself derives from Lat. CASUS (from the verb CADO
>"fall"), which Latin term derives further from Grk PTWSIS, from the verb
>PIPTW "fall." One must understand, the way I was taught it, a "fall" from a
>vertical to a horizontal position, as follows (best I can do with ASCII
>characters, the angles really should space out equally between the vertical
>and horizontal:
>The idea is that the Nominative and Accusative are CASUS RECTI (ORQAI
>PTWSEIS) or "rectangular/right-angle cases" while the Genitive and Dative
>are CASUS OBLIQUI (LOXAI PTWSEIS?); in fact there are similarities between
>Nom. & Acc. as a group and between Gen. & Dat. as a group, when one
>considers some of the factors: in the singular the vowel is long in 1st &
>2nd decl nouns in the gen. and sg., while in 3d decl. monosyllabic stems it
>is the ending syllable that is accented in Gen. & Dat.; the endings of the
>old dual were identical in Nom & Acc and in Gen & Dat. At any rate, that IS
>the rationale for the traditional case-sequence. The order NAGD simply puts
>the "rectilinear" cases first and then does the "oblique cases."
>
>	|Nominative
>	|
>	|   /Genitive
>	|  /
>	| /  /Dative
>	|/  /
>	|__/_______Accusative

-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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