Nouns

GENDER

Nouns can have one of three genders in Meσoγεóiκa, which are the masculine, feminine and neuter genders.  Articles, adjective and pronouns must agree with the noun for gender and number.  Only the articles and adjectives, which modify the noun, must have the same case.  In Meσoγεóiκa, the gender is grammatical most of the time, but many have the biological gender.    For example, the word "Πaτéro" (father), "Ánτra" (husband or man), and "Δiδáσκaλo"(male teacher) are all masculine.  Some words, which are expected to be one gender, are grammatically another gender. For example "Aγóρi" (boy) and "Κoρíцi" (girl) are neuter. If you use these words to refer to someone, you must use the neuter gender until their name is mentioned.  Then, you can use the masculine or the feminine gender.  Nouns referring to masculine concepts are usually masculine in gender, while feminine concepts are usually feminine in gender. Nouns referring to inanimate things aren't always neuter.  They can any of the three genders.  For example, Πaρéτo, Kaρéκλa and Πáne mean wall, chair and bread respectively and are masculine, feminine and neuter respectively.  Even nouns, which have the same meaning, have different genders.  For example the words “Κóζa” and “Πρáγμa” both mean “thing” but are feminine and neuter respectively.

Names of geographical places are generally feminine. In chemistry, names of elements are all neuter, except for some common names of compounds, which could have any gender. Because the ending determines the gender of the noun, suffixes added to nouns may change the gender. For nouns, adjectives, articles and pronoun, the same endings are used to indicate number and case. Many nouns are like adjective, which tell which gender it is in by the vowel they end with.  Nouns have suffixes which determine the gender.  They are below:

DIFFERNET GENDER DIFFERENT MEANING

Most words which have two or more genders have a related meaning. These include professions like "λo Aθλíτρìo" and "λa Aθλíτρìa," which mean male and female athlete respectively. Sometimes, the meaning of the word changes with the gender. For example, "λo Λóγo" means promise and "λe Λóγe" means word. There are many nouns like this and some have meanings in all three genders. For example "λo Бándo" means volume (of an Encyclopaedia); "λa Бánda" means ribbon, tape or band while "λe Бánde" means a musical band. The ending of the noun is different due to grammatical reasons.

CAPITALISATION

All nouns, regardless of position in a sentence or meaning, begin with a capital letter. I've decided to do this to avoid the fact that one must remember if a name is capitalised or not. Also, it is a good way of distinguishing nouns from the rest of the word classes.

COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Countable nouns are nouns which can clearly be counted.  For example, a book, a rabbit, a person, a fantasy and a chocolate are all countable nouns.  They all have plurals, i.e. books, rabbits, persons, fantasies and chocolates.

Uncountable nouns are nouns which cannot be counted.  For example, water, calcium, air, salt, and land.  To count these we use some kind of units.  For water it is litres; for calcium and salt, it is grams or kilograms, for air it is cubic metres etc and for land it is possibly acres.  These nouns generally have no plurals though sometimes it is possible, for them, to have one.

Λa Áκua θa eσσéngo φρéσκan.-The water (singular) is fresh.
Λaθ Áκuaθ θa eσσéno λá en.-The water (plural) is in there.

In the first example, the water exists as one body of water.  Thus it is singular. In the second example, the speaker assumes that the water is in separate containers. The amount of containers is indeterminable. The sentence only gives the fact that the water is not one body of water. How the water exists (whether in separate containers or not) is determined by the number of the water.  In other words, the meaning of the sentence changes whether the word “water” is in the singular number or the plural number.

The idea of uncountable nouns used in the plural number can be used figuratively.  For example, “θa βρaζéno λeθ Éμaθ” means “My blood is boiling” namely “I am very angry.”  The word blood is in the plural in this case.

INVARIABLE PARTS OF SPEECH AS NOUNS

Nouns decline for number, case and gender.  Prepositions and adverbs and other invariable parts of speech do not decline.  When these parts of speech are treated as a noun, they automatically receive the neuter gender and orthographically, its initial letter must be capitalised, just like normal nouns.  As it goes through the case and numbers (from the nominative to the vocative and from the singular to the plural) the invariable part of speech remain unchanged.  The number and case is demonstrated by the article and any adjective which modifies this invariable acting as a noun.

 

HOME | Script | Nouns, Articles, Adjectives, and Pronouns | Adverbs | Verbs | Numbers | Time and Date | Compound Words | Sentence Structures | Emphatic Expressions | Babel Text