Cases: Ονομαστική & Αιτιατική

Remember how to say ‘Canada is here’?

Ο Καναδάς είναι εδώ.

What about ‘Nikos is from Canada?’

Ο Νίκος είναι από τον Καναδά.

The same word, Καναδάς, appears different depending on the role it plays in the sentence. In the first sentence, Canada is the subject. Its the one being pointed to on a map. In the second, Nikos is the subject. He is the one whose background is being spoken about.

Let’s take a look at another couple of examples:

Ο Νίκος περιμένει τον Ανδρέα. (Nikos waits for Andreas)

Ο Ανδρέας περιμένει τον Νίκο. (Andreas waits for Nikos)

In the first sentence, Nikos is the subject – the one doing the waiting.

In the second sentence, Nikos is the object – the one being waited for.

When Nikos is the subject of the sentence, we use the nominative (Ονομαστική) masculine article, ο: Ο Νίκος.

When Nikos is the object of the sentence, we use the nominative (Αιτιατική) masculine article, τον. And, we delete the final -ς: τον Νίκο.

Nominative & Accusative

You may recall that there are four cases in Modern Greek:

1. nominative (which indicates the subject, i.e. who does the verb)
2. accusative (which indicates the object, i.e. who the verb is done to)
3. vocative (which is used to address someone)
4. genitive (which indicates possession and characteristics)

Let’s focus on the first two: nominative (subject) and accusative (object).

These terms sound a little formal and can be tricky to remember, but you can think of the nominative as nominating or naming the person doing the action, and the accusative as the thing or person having something done to them, like an accusation.

Watch Sara’s My Greek Diary video, which explains the steps she took to understand these two cases:

Ονομαστική & Αιτιατική

The Greek names for the nominative and accusative are ονομαστική and αιτιατική.

Remember how to say ‘My name is…’ in Greek?

Το όνομά μου είναι…

Note the similarity between όνομά and ονομαστική, and name and nominative. The ονομαστική names who is doing the action.

On the other hand, the English word ‘accusative’ comes from the Latin accūsātīvus (meaning ‘having been blamed’), which is a mistranslation of the Ancient Greek αἰτιᾱτική, which meant expressing an effect.

It’s probably best to remember accusative and αιτιατική both start with a!

Now, look carefully over the table on page 58 of Ελληνικά Τώρα 1+1.

Notice how masculine words have 2 differences between nominative and accusative (the article, and the end of the noun), while feminine have only 1, and neuter have 0:

Crazy for Greek has an excellent summary:

You can practice these forms on page 26 in the Ελληνικά Τώρα 1 workbook.