The Genitive Case & Possession
Greek has a third everyday case beyond the nominative and accusative: the genitive. Its core job is to express possession and the relationship English shows with “of” - “the teacher’s book” / “the book of the teacher”. Like the other cases it is marked by changing the form of the article and the noun, not by a separate word.
The rule
The genitive is Greek's possession case - it carries the meaning English shows with “of” or ’s. The genitive article is του / της / του in the singular and των for all genders in the plural. Nouns then take their own genitive endings: masculine -ος → -ου / -ων (ανθρώπου, ανθρώπων), feminine -α/-η → -ς / -ων (μητέρας, μητέρων), neuter -ι → -ιού / -ιών (παιδιού, παιδιών), -μα → -ματος / -μάτων (ονόματος, ονομάτων). Watch the stress in the plural: words stressed further back pull the tonos toward the ending - άνθρωπος → ανθρώπων (antepenult to penult), πόρτα → πορτών (penult to ultima) - while oxytone αδελφός → αδελφών does not move, and the kinship nouns μητέρα → μητέρων and πατέρας → πατέρων do not either. To show possession, place the possessor after the thing possessed, in the genitive: το σπίτι του δασκάλου (“the teacher's house”).
Paradigm
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | άνθρωπος | άνθρωποι |
| Accusative | άνθρωπο | ανθρώπους† |
| Genitive | ανθρώπου† | ανθρώπων† |
| Vocative | άνθρωπε† | άνθρωποι† |
- Stress shifts to the penult (-ώπους) in the accusative plural.
- Stress shifts to the penult (-ώπου) in the genitive singular.
- Stress shifts to the penult (-ώπων) in the genitive plural - the classic gen-pl shift.
- Masculine -ος nouns take a distinct vocative singular in -ε (άνθρωπος → άνθρωπε).
- The vocative plural equals the nominative plural.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | μητέρα | μητέρες |
| Accusative | μητέρα | μητέρες |
| Genitive | μητέρας | μητέρων† |
| Vocative | μητέρα† | μητέρες† |
- The tonos does NOT move here: μητέρα → μητέρων is mi-TÉ-ron, not «μητερών». Kinship nouns off the ancient third declension keep it on the penult - compare πατέρας → πατέρων.
- The feminine vocative equals the nominative.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | παιδί | παιδιά |
| Accusative | παιδί | παιδιά |
| Genitive | παιδιού† | παιδιών† |
| Vocative | παιδί† | παιδιά† |
- The ending -ιού carries the stress, exactly as -ί already did: pe-DÍ → pe-DIOÚ. Nothing moves - the word is oxytone throughout.
- The ending -ιών carries the stress, exactly as -ί already did: παιδί → παιδιών. Nothing moves - the word was oxytone to begin with.
- The neuter vocative equals the nominative.