# Homeric Greek: Acc. Sing. of 3rd Declension



## Fenoxielo

I'm teaching myself Ancient (Homeric) Greek via Clyde Pharr's _Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners_. In §685 (for those who have the book), he says "the case ending of accusatives singular masculine and feminine [is] regularly -ν for vowel stems and -α for consonantal stems."

However, I notice two examples in the following paradigms that seem to contradict this (§701): βασιλεύς, acc. βασιλῆα and νηῦς, acc. νῆα. Forgive me if I'm missing something, but aren't these both vowel stems? I realize there are such thing as irregular paradigms, but he doesn't seem to be illustrating irregularities in this table. Why do these forms not follow his "rule" from the previous section?


----------



## modus.irrealis

There's good evidence that the stems of those nouns originally ended in [w] (or digamma), which later dropped out. So historically, they are consonantal stems, and in older works, a historical approach is often adopted. There are also some examples where an original [s] dropped out -- I'm not sure if it occurs in Homer, but e.g. τριήρης, acc. τριήρεα "trireme."

Personally I treat them as separate paradigms (with νηῦς being irregular), since I'm not sure it's the most convenient thing to treat all 3rd declension nouns as belonging to a single paradigm.


----------



## wonderment

Fenoxielo said:


> However, I notice two examples in the following paradigms that seem to contradict this (§701): βασιλεύς, acc. βασιλῆα and νηῦς, acc. νῆα. Forgive me if I'm missing something, but aren't these both vowel stems? I realize there are such thing as irregular paradigms, but he doesn't seem to be illustrating irregularities in this table. Why do these forms not follow his "rule" from the previous section?



Both nouns belong to the same paradigm. Their stems used to end in the letter ϝ (wau, later called digamma because it looked like a double gamma). ϝ was basically a consonantal (semi-vocalic) υ that later fell out of use. The final υ of the stems of these nouns first became ϝ and then was lost:

nominative: βασιλεύς, νηύς 
genitive ( with υ --> ϝ): βασιληϝος, νηϝος 
genitive (with lost of ϝ): βασιλῆος, νηός 
accusative: βασιλῆα, νῆα ​An important noun in Homer, ἥρως (hero) also fits in this paradigm; the genitive is ἥρωος (formerly ἡρωϝος ), accusative ἥρωα. (There was no original υ here, just a ϝ)

This paradigm is different from the one in which nouns with stems that end in σ lose this σ when it comes between two vowels. An example of this from Homer is ἠώς (dawn). The genitive was originally ἠοσος (which gave the noun a consonantal stem), then the intervocalic σ dropped out to give ἠόος. Likewise for the accusative, ἠοσα --> ἠόα.

Anyway, I don't see these nouns as irregular. But third declension nouns are very complex, and though you can group them into consonantal and vowel stems, you will need to learn way more than just two paradigms. They are usually grouped according to their stem endings, and there are many: dental mutes stems, labial and palatal stems, liquid and nasal stems, liquid stems, stems in various combinations of vowels (to name just a few ) And then there are the truly irregular nouns that do things like decline from two separate stems or have different genders for the singular and plural. But it's really not as daunting as it sounds once you get into the reading... sheer pleasure.


----------



## orthophron

Fenoxielo said:


> "the case ending of accusatives singular masculine and feminine [is] regularly -ν for vowel stems and -α for consonantal stems. However, I notice two examples in the following paradigms that seem to contradict this (§701): βασιλεύς, acc. βασιλῆα and νηῦς, acc. νῆα.


Accusative of nouns (masc or fem) of 3rd declension.

The *ending "**–ν"* occurs in :

*(a)* nouns (masc or fem) ending in *–υς* _gen _*–υος*, -*ις* _gen _*–ιος* (single stem) and *–υς* _or_ *–ις* _gen _*–εως* (two stems).
e.g. ἰχθύς, μῦς, τίγρις, πῆχυς, πόλις etc.

*(b)* nouns (masc or fem) with a single stem, ending in -*οῦς* _gen _–*οός*, -*αῦς* _gen _–*αός*.
e.g. βοῦς, γραῦς etc.

*(c)* nouns (masc or fem) with dental stem and no stress on last syllabe, ending in –*ις*, _gen_ –*τος*, -*δος*, -*θος*.
e.g. χάρις, ἔρις etc.

Back to your examples now. 

"*βασιλεύς*" : _nom_ -*εύς* _gen_ -*έως* (single stem)
The characteristic of this category is the removal of "*υ*". If it is found between vowels, it drops out and, after “antimetachoresis” (exchanging of roles of long and short vowels), βασιλῆος -> βασιλέως.

"*ναῦς*" : It seems to belong to case (b)* _(**edited)*_ above but its declension is irregular (stems ναυ-, νη-, νε-) :
ἡ ναῦς, τῆς νεώς, τῇ νηί, τήν ναῦν, ὦ ναῦ 
αἱ νῆες, τῶν νεῶν, ταῖς ναυσί, τάς ναῦς, ὦ νῆες

*Note*. _gen_ νᾱός or νηός (originally) -> νεώς (after “antimetachoresis”)
_acc_ “ναῦν” or it can be found as “νῆα” (if "Fenoxielo" says so).


----------



## wonderment

> "*ναῦς*" : It seems to belong to case (c) above but its declension is irregular (stems ναυ-, νη-, νε-) :
> ἡ ναῦς, τῆς νεώς, τῇ νηί, τήν ναῦν, ὦ ναῦ
> αἱ νῆες, τῶν νεῶν, ταῖς ναυσί, τάς ναῦς, ὦ νῆες


In the Homeric dialect *νηῦς* belongs to the same paradigm as *βασιλεύς* and their declension is quite regular:

(singular) *νηῦς, νηός, νηί, νηᾶ, νηῦ*
(plural) *νῆες, νηῶν, νήεσσι, νῆας, νῆες* ​
(singular) *βασιλεύς, βασιλῆος, βασιλῆι, βασιλῆα, βασιλεῦ*
(plural) *βασιλῆες, βασιλήων,βασιλήεσσι, βασιλῆας, βασιλῆες*
The lengthening of the ε to η in the stem is to compensate for the lost the consonant ϝ.​
The variety of stems results from dialectal differences. The paradigm you give is for the Attic dialect (the “standard” dialect of classical Greek, of Plato and Thucydides), and there’s another paradigm for the Doric dialect. See here. But what we’re discussing is the Homeric dialect. 



> *Note*. _gen_ νᾱός or νηός (originally) -> νεώς (after “antimetachoresis”)
> _acc_ “ναῦν” or it can be found as “νῆα” (if "Fenoxielo" says so).


No, not Fenoxielo, but beloved Homer


----------



## orthophron

> originally posted by *orthophron *"*ναῦς*" : It seems to belong to case (c) ...





> originally posted by *wonderment *“c” ? *ναῦς* has a dental stem ??  *ναῦς* belongs to “a” and its declension is quite regular in the Homeric dialect:(singular) *νηῦς, νηός, νηί, νηᾶ, νηῦ*
> (plural) *νῆες, νηῶν, νήεσσι, νῆας, νῆες*​


Well I obviously meant case (b) -*αῦς* _gen _–*αός.* But do you still think this is (a) ?


----------



## wonderment

orthophron said:


> Well I obviously meant case (b) -*αῦς* _gen _–*αός.* But do you still think this is (a) ?



On second look, no--it's "b" because with *ναῦς* we are here talking about the Attic dialect. In the Homeric dialect, *βασιλεύς* and *νηῦς* are grouped together; both are consonantal stems with *-α* in the accusative singular. This is clearly not the case with the Attic dialect. And Fenoxielo should keep in mind that he is learning the Homeric dialect, and the rules he's learning apply to Homeric dialect, not necessarily Attic. The dialects are mutually comprehensible, but differences show up in places like declensions.


----------



## orthophron

> originally posted by *wonderment*
> In the Homeric dialect, *βασιλεύς* and *νηῦς* are grouped together...


Actually they both belong to the same group in my "Attic" grammar too. They are considered to have vowel stem  - never mind - but there is this differentiation in acc (-ν for "ναῦς", -α for "βασιλεύς").
I also visited the link you suggested (nice! thank you); I don't see a different classification, it has exactly the same examples and presents the "complex" declension of "ναῦς" (such nouns I call irregular) as well as the individual (Homeric/Doric) "regular" ones.


> originally posted by *wonderment*
> And Fenoxielo should keep in mind that he is learning the Homeric dialect, and the rules he's learning apply to Homeric dialect, not necessarily Attic


 I agree. However in our case only the noun ναῦς and related seem to stretch the rule of presence of -ν in acc.


----------

