Biblical Greek Grammar: From A to Ω Practice Flashcards

Vocabulary and core grammatical terms from Stan Kondrat's Biblical Greek Grammar covering alphabet basics through the perfect tense.

Tense

A grammatical category that indicates the time of an action, such as present, past, or future.

Voice

A grammatical category indicating the direction of an action: active (subject does the action), passive (action done to the subject), or middle (subject does action directed at itself).

Mood

Refers to the manner in which the speaker relates the verbal idea to reality (e.g., Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive, or Infinitive).

Inflection

The process of changing word forms (bending) to indicate categories like person, number, and case.

Stem

The part of a word that does not change during inflection. For example, in $ext{lúω}$, the stem is $ext{lu–}$.

Connecting Vowel

Vowels placed between the stem and personal suffixes; in the present active indicative, it is $ext{–o–}$ before $ext{μ}$ and $ext{ν}$ and $ext{–ε–}$ elsewhere.

Declension

The specific inflection of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns in Greek.

Case

A grammatical category that determines the function of a noun in a sentence, replacing word order found in English.

Nominative Case

The case representing the subject of a sentence.

Genitive Case

The case representing the possessor or separation; often translated using the word "of."

Dative Case

The case representing the indirect object, instrument, or location; often translated with "to" or "for."

Accusative Case

The case representing the direct object of an action.

Vocative Case

The case representing the addressee (e.g., "O man").

Diphthong

A combination of two vowels that produces one syllable.

Iota Subscript

A silent $ext{ι}$ written beneath a long vowel ($ext{ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ}$) in an improper diphthong.

Rough Breathing Mark ($ext{῾}$)

A mark on a starting vowel or diphthong indicating an initial "h" sound.

Smooth Breathing Mark ($ext{᾿}$)

A mark on a starting vowel or diphthong indicating the absence of an initial "h" sound.

Enclitic

A word closely connected to a previous word that may lose its accent.

Proclitic

A word that has no accent and connects to the following accented word.

Attributive Adjective

An adjective used to describe or delimit a noun, visually identified in Greek by the presence of an article (e.g., "the good man").

Predicative Adjective

An adjective making a statement about a noun (using the verb "is"), visually identified in Greek by the absence of an article.

Substantive Adjective

An adjective that functions as a noun, usually preceded by an article (e.g., $ext{ό ἀγαθός}$ meaning "the good man").

Augment ($ext{ε–}$)

A prefix added to the stem in historical past tenses (imperfect, aorist, pluperfect) to indicate past time.

Deponent Verb

A verb that appears only in middle or passive forms but carries an active meaning.

Dativus Instrumenti

A noun in the dative case (sometimes with $ext{ἐν}$) used to indicate the instrument or means of an action.

Imperfect Tense

A historical tense indicating an unfinished or continuous action in the past.

Aorist Tense

A historical tense indicating a finished action in the past; equivalent to the simple past in English.

Future Tense Suffix ($ext{–σ}$)

The consonant added to the present stem to form the future active and middle stems.

Third Declension

A grouping of nouns that do not follow the first or second declensions; the stem is found by removing the Genitive Singular ending $ext{–ος}$.

Participle

Verbal adjectives that possess both verbal characteristics (tense, voice) and adjective characteristics (gender, case, number).

Genitive Absolute

An independent clause consisting of a circumstantial participle and a noun or pronoun, both in the genitive case.

Subjunctive Mood

The mood of possibility, probability, or exhortation, characterized by the lengthening of connecting vowels.

Hortatory Subjunctive

A first-person plural subjunctive used to express an exhortation, translated as "Let us…"

Protasis

The "if" clause of a conditional statement.

Apodosis

The "then" clause (result or explanation) of a conditional statement.

Infinitive

A verbal noun not limited by person or number, often translated as "to…" or as a gerund.

Contracting Verbs

Verbs with stems ending in short vowels ($ext{α, ε, ο}$) that unite with the vowels of personal endings.

Liquid Verbs

Verbs whose stem ends in the consonants $ext{λ, μ, ν,}$ or $ext{ρ}$, forming the future tense without the $ext{σ}$ suffix.

Imperative Suffix ($ext{–ε}$)

The standard active second-person singular ending for commands in the present tense.

Reduplication

The characteristic prefix of the perfect tense, which typically repeats the first consonant of the stem followed by an epsilon.

Perfect Tense

A tense emphasizing the present or ongoing result of a completed action in the past.