# whose usage



## dukaine

My research turned up two declined forms of "whose" used in spoken Greek: ποιανού and ποιανής. I looked in one place and ποιανού was the masculine and neuter form, and ποιανής was the feminine. However, in my studies I've seen ποιανής used with masculine nouns (actual example - ποιανής είναι αυτός ο καφές. I'm really confused about which one to use when. Also, are their plural forms? I think I also read that there's a difference between the nominative, accusative, and genitive forms, as well as the word τίνος and all its forms. Can someone help me sort this out?


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## διαφορετικός

dukaine said:


> I've seen ποιανής used with masculine nouns (actual example - ποιανής είναι αυτός ο καφές; )


I suppose that the gender of ποιανής does not have to be identical to the gender of καφές in this example. The gender of ποιανής seems to refer to the gender of the owner of the coffee.

I have found the different forms of the word here, including the plural:
ποιος - Βικιλεξικό

According to
Νέα : Κλίση, Ορθογραφία, Αναγνώριση, Γραμματική (Νέα Και Λόγια Ελληνική) - Lexigram
the long forms ("...αν...") are used for spoken language (προφορικό λόγο) and in artistic literature (λογοτεχνία).


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## dukaine

διαφορετικός said:


> The gender of ποιανής seems to refer to the gender of the owner of the coffee.



But -νης is feminine. If you don't know who it belongs to, wouldn't you use masculine if it refers to the owner?


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## ireney

Hello dukaine. As διαφορετικός mentioned in your example the "ποιανής" does not refer to the coffee but to the person it belongs to. "Whose is this coffee?" (who does this coffee belong to?) asks the sentence. Let's say it was asking "whose is he?" and the answer was "He is hers"  . You can easily see, in the answer to the hypothetical second question, that, in English too, the gender does not have to comply between the two.

As for your second question, yes, if you do not know the gender in a mixed group you'd go for the masculine. If, however, it's a group of women who are having coffee then you'd go for the feminine.


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## Vagabond

dukaine said:


> My research turned up two declined forms of "whose" used in spoken Greek: ποιανού and ποιανής. I looked in one place and ποιανού was the masculine and neuter form, and ποιανής was the feminine. However, in my studies I've seen ποιανής used with masculine nouns (actual example - ποιανής είναι αυτός ο καφές. I'm really confused about which one to use when. Also, are their plural forms? I think I also read that there's a difference between the nominative, accusative, and genitive forms, as well as the word τίνος and all its forms. Can someone help me sort this out?


You are right that ποιανού is the masculine / neutral form, while ποιανής is the feminine form. However, they do not comply with the gender of the subject ο καφές (to use your example), but with whom owns the coffee.
So if we don't know whose coffee it is, but we're sure it belongs to a woman, it would be indeed - Ποιανής είναι αυτός ο καφές;
If we are not sure if the coffee belongs to a man or a woman, we'd play it safe and go with the masculine - Ποιανού είναι αυτός ο καφές;
The other way around as well; say we're inquiring about a cat (η γάτα - feminine).
If we know it belongs to a woman, then - Ποιανής είναι αυτή η γάτα;
If we're not sure, then - Ποιανού είναι αυτή η γάτα;

Think of it this way - ποιανού / ποιανής is replacing the actual owner of [whatever]. Let's say the coffee belongs to _*Maria*_, who is of course a woman.
So: assuming we know the owner is a she, _*ποιανής *_είναι αυτός ο καφές; Είναι ο καφές _*της Μαρίας*_, είναι ο καφές _*της*_, it's _*her *_coffee.

The plural form would be ποιανών, for masculine, feminine and neutral alike.
Ποιανών είναι αυτός ο καφές; - many owners of the coffee, regardless of gender. (Okay, it would be a bit strange if one coffee belonged to many people, but let's pretend there's nothing weird here  )
So, you have _*ποιανού *_(the owner is singular, masculine or neutral, or we have no idea of his/her/its gender), _*ποιανής *_(the owner is singular, feminine), _*ποιανών *_(the owners are plural, masculine & feminine & neutral alike).

These are already in *genitive *form, as they describe possession. Just like "whose".
*Nominative *would be who, and in Greek ποιος (sing. masc.), ποια (sing. fem.), ποιο (sing. neut.), ποιοι (pl. masc.), ποιες (pl. fem.), ποια (pl. neut.)
*Accusative *in English would be whom; in Greek, ποιον (sing. masc.), ποια(ν) (sing. fem.), ποιο (sing. neut.), ποιους (pl. masc.), ποιες (pl. fem.), ποια (pl. neut.)


Then, you also have ποιου - ποιας - ποιου (plural: ποιων) you can use instead of ποιανού - ποιανής - ποιανού (plural: ποιανών), which is pretty much the same as above.
And there's also τίνος, which is pretty much a remnant of ancient Greek, but is still used locally and/or informally; it's in the singular masculine and singular neutral. The feminine and plural forms would sound a bit archaic or academic.

I hope I didn't manage to confuse you!


P.S.: Aaand I was too late!


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## uress

Dukaine, have in your mind something like his-her-their coffee and you can get it easier.


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## dukaine

Vagabond said:


> I hope I didn't manage to confuse you!



No, this explanation was brilliant!! Thank you so much!!


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