Thrasymachus CHAPTERS I and II


The unexamined life is not worth living for a man.

Years ago you began learning your native language by listening and speaking, eventually reading and writing,
and being corrected when you made grammatical mistakes. (Most of us at some time told our parents "Look
what I brang home." Because they corrected us or because we usually heard others say "brought," we eventually
learned the past tense of "bring").

You have now been reading and comprehending Greek even though you have not yet formally learned
vocabulary, grammatical forms, and rules. We believe that you will acquire knowledge of grammar and
vocabulary more easily after you have seen and understood the words and forms in their context.

As you continue reading Greek, keep in mind the main points in the introduction about approaching a Greek
passage: always read through the passage several times -- a sentence or two at a time if that is easier -- before
you begin to translate. Only when you see the overall structure of a sentence can you begin to make a
translation. Never start by searching for the subject, verb, and direct object. While this method will work for
short, simple sentences, you are likely to be confused when you are reading complex sentences. (As you
recognize more and more vocabulary, you may find that you are able to comprehend some passages instantly,
as you do in English, without analysis or translation).

NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES

A NOUN is a word which denotes a person, place, thing, or idea. The English word "noun" itself is derived
from the Latin "nomen", meaning "name", and of course the essential function of a noun is to name something.
The nouns of the following sentences are underlined:

The child sees the house. 

In both English and Greek, nouns change form to give slightly more information than simply the name of some
entity in a phrase or sentence.

All nouns have NUMBER. In other words, they are in a form which shows that they are singular or plural:
"house" and "houses", "" and "". In addition to having the numbers "singular" and "plural", the
Ancient Greek language included the "dual" as well, which indicates two. The dual is not terribly common and
most often applies to eyes, hands, feet, etc.

Also, all nouns have CASE. This is slightly more complicated than number as it indicates the grammatical
function of a noun: subject, direct object, etc., in its phrase or sentence [see Thrasymachus p. 254]. In other
words, all nouns are in a form which indicates grammatical function. While these various forms of the noun
originated in spoken language, we see them as variations in spelling.

1
The student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, Plato(427-345 B.C.) was one of the three greatest philosophers of
ancient Greece. This quotation is taken from his Apology, in which Plato presents a dramatic defense of his mentor and
teacher Socrates. In the dialogue, Socrates defends himself at his own trial, against charges of impiety.
A Greek noun has eight forms. (Note that the paradigms (examples) given in Thrasymachus list ten forms, the
eight given below plus the singular and plural of the vocative, the case used in direct address. We have chosen
to simplify and not include the vocative for you to memorize, since in context it is readily recognizable and
often preceded by "". (See Thrasymachus p. 254.) Below are listed the eight forms.

CASE SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative  

Accusative  

Genitive  

Dative  

If you have learned Latin, you may have learned the forms in a different order: Nominative, Genitive, Dative,
Accusative (and Ablative, which does not appear in Greek). The benefit of the order you are given
in Thrasymachus and this Supplement is that nominatives and accusatives are encountered more often in Greek
than the other two cases. The order of the forms reflects their incidence. The benefit of the alternative order is
that by convention the Genitive singular is listed as part of the “dictionary entry”. (See below). You will be
memorizing the basic endings. Keep in mind, however, that your most important task is to recognize each form
in context and understand the function of each noun.

The Nominative case indicates that the noun is the subject of a sentence or clause.

The god sees the man. 

The Accusative case often shows that the noun is used as a direct object or the object of a preposition. (You
will learn about other uses of the Accusative later)

The man sees the god. 

into the house. .

The Genitive case has several uses, but often functions as the equivalent of the English possessive case.

The god's voice. 

The Dative case shows most commonly that the noun is the indirect object of the sentence. In other words, it
is the person or thing to which something is given, said, or shown. A good way of translating the word into
itsEnglish equivalent is with “to” or “for”.

The man speaks to the god. .

All nouns in Greek have gender. In English, most nouns are neither masculine or feminine. Exceptions, of
course, occur when gender is inherent in a noun, such as "girl" or "boy." In Greek, however, each noun is
masculine, feminine, or neuter. Often we cannot predict the gender of a particular noun from its
meaning; house, for instance happens to be feminine and (river) masculine.
 DICTIONARY ENTRIES

Traditionally, nouns are listed in the dictionary in their nominative and genitive singular forms. If the genitive
is the same as the nominative except in ending, only the ending is given: . In addition, the
nominative singular of the definite article (English "the") is given: 

The base of a Greek noun is equivalent to the genitive singular form, minus the genitive singular ending.

In Greek, the definite article (“the”) also has case, number, and gender:  (nominative, singular,
masculine),(nominative, singular, feminine), and  (nominative, singular, neuter). The appropriate
definite article is included in the dictionary entry to indicate the gender of the noun.

Thus, the full dictionary entry is:

man, human being

LEARNING ENDINGS

You are asked to learn as thoroughly as possible the Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative forms,
singular and plural, all three genders for each of the three categories of nouns, or “declensions.” (Later you
will see variations of the regular patterns, many of which are determined by pronunciation. You will be
encouraged to be able to recognize these forms rather than memorize all of them).

DECLENSIONS

Greek nouns are placed into three categories, called “declensions”. Before we discuss them, consider the
following. Many nouns in English follow the pattern that you have just seen in "god"; the common plural is
formed by adding an "s". Thus: girl, girls; boy, boys; house, houses. Other nouns form the plural by changing
the final "y" to "i" and adding "es". Thus: kitty, kitties; lady, ladies. Still other nouns form the plural with slight
letter changes; thus, knife, knives; thief, thieves. And others have unpredictable changes (or no changes); thus
mouse, mice; deer, deer.

In the same way, not all nouns in Greek follow the pattern of . Another very common pattern is seen
in :

CASE SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative  

Accusative  

Genitive  

Dative  

By convention, nouns with endings as  are called "Second Declension" and those with endings
as  or  (see Thrasymachus p. 4)"First Declension". Note how similar they are: the genitive
plural, for instance, is always ; the accusative singular ends in a ""; the dative singular is a long vowel with
an iota subscript; and the dative plural a diphthong (two vowels sounded as one) and "". Note also that the
primary vowel of the first declension is "" (long or short) and that of second declension is "". Note
the patterns of the endings as you review the basic first (mostly feminine) and second declension (mostly
masculine or neuter) endings:

SINGUAR PLURAL

First, Second First, Second

Nominative  

Accusative  

Genitive  

Dative  

You should memorize the basic endings listed above and be able to recognize them and their variations in
context. It is much more important that you recognize as nominative plural, and therefore the
subject of a verb, than be able to list all the forms. For most of us, however, the better we know the endings
and the more able we are to reproduce them, the more easily we recognize them.

Note that most first declension nouns are feminine and most second declension nouns are masculine or neuter.
You will see exceptions to this later.

The terminology and division of "first declension" and "second declension," etc., is artificial. It represents a
convenient way to organize the vaious endings in categories. The declension of a noun is not nearly so
important as what case the noun is. Thus, when identifying a noun or adjective, the most important item of that
identification is the case, which determines the function of the noun in the sentence. Number and gender are
helpful, of course, but the declension is not crucial for comprehension or translating.

The two words that you have seen written out in each case, singular and plural (and) are
paradigms of basic first and second declension nouns, feminine and masculine.

There are also second declension nouns which are neuter; look at the paradigm of :

CASE SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative  

Accusative  

Genitive  

Dative  

If you see  without a context, can you tell whether it is a nominative or accusative? If you see it in a
sentence, can you tell? 

Review the 2nd declension basic endings that you have learned and note the pattern. The pattern for the second
declension neuter nouns such as  is similar, but you will notice some variations ( for nominative
singular and  for nominative and accusative plural). It is helpful to remember that whatever the neuter
nominative form is, the accusative is the same. And all neuter plural nominatives and accusatives end
in .

Here are the case endings for the first declension and the second declension (including the neuter) for you to
compare:

CASE SINGULAR PLURAL

First, Second M, N First, Second M, N

Nominative  

Accusative  

Genitive  

Dative  

THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

Now look at the declension pattern of the definite article (Thrasymachus p. 4) and compare this
with the pattern of the noun endings.
ADJECTIVES
An adjective is a word that describes a noun:
the good child, 

See Thrasymachus pp. 4 and 255 for discussion and the paradigms of the first-second declension
adjectives . Note that first-second declension adjectives have the same
basic endings as the nouns :  as ;  as   as . It would
make more sense if the dictionary entry of the adjective were " but by
convention we list adjectives with the nominative singular forms in the order of masculine,
feminine, neuter.
 GREEK VS. ENGLISH

In the Introduction you learned that Greek differs from English in that it is a highly inflected language. Now
that you have been reading Greek, you have seen nouns in different forms, such
as  and  and and you see that their usage in the sentence dictates
the form. The major difference between English and Greek is in this difference of forms. In Greek, (as in many
ancient and modern languages) the function of a noun in its clause is determined by changes in its sound (and
spelling), usually at the very end of a word, whereas in English the function of a noun in its clause is usually
determined by word order. In other words, whereas our brains are “programmed” by our early childhood
experience to listen and read for word order, those of the ancient Greeks were “programmed” to be attuned to
word endings. For example, note the English structure evident in these two sentences:

Thrasymachus sees the man.

The man sees Thrasymachus.

We know automatically that in the first sentence it is Thrasymachus who is doing the seeing because “Thrasymachus”
precedes the verb “sees”, while the direct object, “man”, follows that verb. Now note the following two pairs of
sentences in Greek:

.

.

.



The first two sentences mean the same thing (“Thrasymachus sees the man”) despite the fact that the word
order is different.  (“Thrasymachus”) is the subject because of the nominative ending.
Similarly, the third and fourth sentences mean the same thing (“The man sees Thrasymachus”).

Since word order in Greek is not crucial for meaning as it is in English, it can be used for more subtle
expression. In the first sentence above, the emphasis is on the subject: Thrasymachus sees the man. In the
second, the emphasis is on the direct object: Thrasymachus sees the man (or “It is the man whom
Thrasymachus sees).

This does not, however, mean that Greek word order is random. There are some conventions of order which
are followed regularly.
 PHRASES AND CLAUSES
SIMPLE, COMPOUND, COMPLEX SENTENCES

In English and Greek thoughts are conveyed in sentences, which are formed of clauses and phrases.

A phrase is a group of words which are understood together but do not have a subject or verb. A prepositional
phrase, for instance, consists of a preposition and its object (in the house; ). A participial
phrase consists of a participle and its related words (seeing the child; ).

A clause is a group of words which are understood together that has a subject and a verb. There are two kinds:
an independent clause can stand by itself (I see the child; ); a dependent
clause cannot stand by itself (whom I see; ).

There are three basic types of sentences in English and Greek:

1) Simple, which consists of an independent clause (I see the child; ).

2) Compound, which consists of at least two independent clauses (I see the child and I hear the
voice; ).

3) Complex, which consists of at least one independent and one dependent clause (I see the child who is
good; ).

It should become clearer now why the process of reading is so crucial. If you are reading a lengthy complex
sentence, you simply cannot begin by searching for the subject and verb. There may be several of each. If you
read the sentence several times in Greek, even if you don’t comprehend it and have to look up some vocabulary,
at least you will know if you are dealing with a simple, compound, or complex sentence.

UNCONTRACTED VERBS
Verbs are the words that express action or state of being:

The man sees the child. .

The sea is beautiful. .

Verb usage in English and Greek is similar in many respects. Verb formation, as you might expect, is
different.
 EXPRESSION OF ACTION IN THE PRESENT TIME

Present Indicative Active

“Present” refers to action or state of being at the present time. “Indicative” indicates a statement of fact (as
opposed to a command or a wish). “Active” indicates that the subject is the one acting. Study the following
sentences:

.

[What is the subject here? the verb? and the direct object?



[What has changed in this sentence? What is the subject now? What is different about the verb?]

.

[What is the subject now? the verb?]



[What is the subject? What is different about the verb?]

.

[What is the subject? Is it singular or plural?

.

[What is the subject? Is the subject singular or plural?]

Compare the following Greek and English:

I see the man. .

You see the man.

The child sees the man. .

The child and I (we) see the man. 

You and the child see the man. .

The child and the god see the man. .

In English, you must express the subject in the sentence. “Sees the child,” for instance, makes no sense. In
Greek, however, the ending of the verb tells you whether the subject is FIRST, SECOND, or THIRD
PERSON, SINGULAR or PLURAL.

You have seen that in Greek, the subject need not be expressed, since the ending indicates whether the subject
is first, second, or third person singular or plural. The subject may be expressed to clarify or specify:

. She (or he) sees the man.

. The child sees the man.

The subject can be expressed also to emphasize:

. I see the man.

. I see the man.

You will need to memorize the following so you can easily identify the person and number of the Present,
Indicative, Active verb forms:

VERB FORM ENDING PERSON

  first, singular

  second, singular

  third, singular

  first, plural

  second, plural

  third, plural

The Present Indicative Active is formed by adding the “primary active endings” to the “continuous action
stem”: - plus .  represents present time, indicative mood, active voice,
1st person singular.
 ACCENT REVIEW

You have seen that an accent appears only on the one of the last three syllables of a word, that there are three
accents (acute, circumflex, grave), and that the grave replaces the acute on the final syllable when the word is
followed by an accented word.

The accent on a noun is persistent, which means that it stays as close as possible to its original placement in
the nominative form (). The accent on a verb is recessive, which means that it stays
on the third syllable from the end when possible (). The accent cannot stay on the third to
the last syllable if the last syllable is long, such as the sound of or It will move to the next to the last
syllable (). See Thrasymachus, pp. 275-6).

THE VERB TO BE

Just as in English, Latin, and many other languages, the verb “to be” is the most highly irregular of the verbs.
Learn the forms of the present indicative of this verb. Compare it with English and with a regular Greek verb.

I am  I hear 

You are  You hear 

He, she it is  He, she, it hears 

We are  We hear 

You are  You hear 

They are  They hear 

After some forms that end with a vowel, the letter  may be added to smooth pronunciation. This is called the
“moveable ”. Note the following examples:


.



When a form has the option of a moveable , it is used before a vowel or at the end of a sentence.
 IMPERATIVES

Note the difference between the following sentences:

You look at (are looking at) the river

(You), look at the river

The first sentence is a statement of fact, an indicative in the present tense. You are looking at the river. The
second sentence is a command in the second person form (you singular).

An imperative is a verb form that expresses a command. It is formed in Greek by adding the appropriate ending
( for singular and for plural) to the "continuous action stem". 

PREPOSITIONS

See Thrasymachus p. 257, then translate the following prepositional phrases, noting which case follows the
preposition.

1. 

2. 

3. .

THIRD DECLENSION NOUNS

Before you continue your study of Greek nouns, be sure that you understand the following:

o that the endings of a noun change depending on the noun's function in its sentence.
o what the four cases are and what the function is of each.
o the concept of gender.
o the categorization of nouns into three "declensions".
o the basic endings of first and second declensions.
o that there is a pattern to the endings. They are not simply random.
o that the most crucial thing for you to do is identify the case of each noun in its context.

As of now you have learned the basic forms of the first (mostly feminine) and second (mostly masculine and
neuter) declension nouns and can recognize them and their variations within a context. And, by extension, you
have learned the "first-second declension" adjectives, such as  as well as the article .

You have seen that endings of the "first" and "second declension" are fairly similar. Although there is greater
difference between the endings of the first and third or second and third declensions than between the first and
second, we still see some of the pattern that we saw in Chapter Two..
Read the following sentences:











You see here some endings that could be confusing without a context. For instance, although looks
like a nominative, masculine, singular second declension noun, it happens to be a genitive, masculine,
singular third declension noun here.

Nouns of the "third declension" can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. See the paradigms
in Thrasymachus page 8. Note that the same rule applies to third declension neuter nouns that applies to second
declension neuter nouns: whatever the nominative singular or plural is, the accusative is the same. in addition,
all neuter nominative and accusative plurals end in .

Compare the first, second, and third declension noun / adjective endings:

CASE First Second M, N Third, M or F, N

Nominative   ?, ?*

Accusative   , ?

Genitive   

Dative   

Nominative Plur.   

Accusative Plur.   

Genitive Plur.   

Dative Plur.    

*The nominative singular of a third declension noun often differs from the base.

As you learn each new concept or grammatical form in Greek, you will be reinforcing what you have learned
previously. Your learning the third declension should reinforce your knowledge of the first two declensions.
You can see, for example, that all genitive plurals are alike, that dative singulars contain an iota (in subscript
form for the first two declensions), and dative plurals are iota - sigma or sigma -iota.
 THIRD DECLENSION ADJECTIVES

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER:

1. Most important in your identification of a noun is its case. Gender and number are next, and finally the
declension.

2. The article and the adjective agree with the noun in case, gender, and number, but not necessarily declension.
In other words, the endings of the article, adjective, and noun do not have to look
alike.  but  .

3. You have already seen the interrogative adjective,  (who? what?). The endings are third declension
and the masculine and feminine endings are the same.

Be familiar with this interrogative and with  (meaning "a certain"). These two words should clarify for
you how important accents are. See Thrasymachus p. 8 for an explanation of the differences between the two
words.

NUMBERS AS ADJECTIVES

Some adjectives follow the pattern of . (one). See Thrasymachus p. 9.

The nominative masculine and neuter are slightly different than you would expect, but the other cases follow
the patterns you have seen before. Note that the feminine is first declension and the masculine and neuter are
third. You should learn this adjective so that you understand this pattern.

Note that  (two) is different from anything you have seen previously; the forms are dual. You should
recognize these and the forms of (three) and  (four). You can understand why, just as
"one" appears only in the singular, "three" and "four" appear only in the plural.

PRONOUNS

A pronoun takes the place of a noun. Our language would be boring without pronouns, as you can see from the
following English example: "My friend lives next door to me. My friend's name is Diana, and my friend is my
classmate."

Pronouns are similar in English and Greek. English pronouns have case, as you have seen in Greek. For
instance, the "nominative" form of the first person singular pronoun in English is "I" and the "accusative" is
"me". You don't think about which to use in English. You do not say "Me enjoy learning Greek" or "She sees
I".

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

You have already seen the Greek personal pronoun many times. "First person" refers to the speaker; "second
person" to the person spoken to; and "third person" to the person spoken about. I(first) saw you (second) talking
with her (third person). See Thrasymachus pp. 9 and 200 for the forms of the first and second person pronouns
in Greek. These forms appear frequently. You will need to learn them well enough to reproduce them.

NUMERALS
See Thrasymachus p. 9 for the numerals which are not declined. Practice counting out loud several times.

VOCABULARY

(see Thrasymachus pp. 163-4)

Note particularly the construction, which indicates a contrast or balanced

situation. .
Translation of such a balanced statement is a bit difficult, for the common translation ‘on the one hand . . . on
the other hand” may seem too strong. “The gods teach the men; the men (teach) the children.” The gods are
being contrasted with the men.

In the following sentence, the verbs are contrasted:

 “The man speaks; the child listens.”

(who?, whom? what?).These will be discussed in the next chapter.

We highly recommend that you make your own flash cards for self study and quizzing and so that you do not
memorize the vocabulary in the order it is given to you. Be sure that you include cognates and English
derivatives on your cards. You can readily surmise which vocabulary is more important and should be
memorized rather than just learned for recognition; “thunder”, “lightning”, and “himation” will not appear in
texts nearly so often as “man”, “god”, and “always”.

Clearly, a large working vocabulary is of great benefit and will allow you to read Greek texts more rapidly. No
one wants to spend hours looking up words in a lexicon. Yet we emphasize that a large vocabulary without a
good understanding of grammar or the knowledge of how to approach a Greek text is of little help. It is almost
never helpful to approach a passage based on vocabulary alone.