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Lesson 3.1 · Words that go with nouns

The definite article

The word “the” — and why there is no word for “a”.

The word for "the" is the shortest word in the language: the stem t-, with the endings you learned in Part 2 — nothing new whatsoever.

tthe omasculine sdoing it

tos "the", with a masculine word that is doing something. Change the noun's job and "the" changes with it:

Job 
doing ittos logos — the word
done toton logon — the word
oftou logou — of the word
to / forto logo — to the word
plural, doing ittois logois — the words

The two words rhyme, and that is not an accident: "the" and its noun always carry the same gender vowel, the same plural i, and the same job letter. This is called agreement, and it is the single most useful reading aid in the language — in a long sentence, the words that match belong together.

Definite article (stem t-)

Always t-, agreeing in gender, case, and number. There is no indefinite article.

mascfemneut
nominativetostastem
accusativetontantem
genitivetoutauteu
dativetotate
There is no word for "a" or "an". A noun on its own is "a word": logos. With tos in front it is "the word". So the presence or absence of this little word is meaningful — worth noticing rather than skipping over.
In the Greek — an old friend

Greek's article is ὁ / ἡ / τό, and almost all of its forms already begin with τ: τόν, τοῦ, τῷ, τήν, τῆς, τό, τῶν, τοῖς. The stem t- is that τ made regular, which is why ton theon is πρὸς τὸν θεόν letter for letter.

Greek also has no indefinite article, and it uses the definite one in places English would not — before abstract nouns, before names, and to turn almost anything into a noun. Biblang keeps the article exactly where the Greek has it, so what you see is the author's own choice, not a translator's.

Practice

  1. Fill in: ___ agapan — "the love", as the thing being loved.
  2. What is tou huiou?
  3. Why is tem pneumem spelled with -em twice?
Show the answers
  1. tan agapan — feminine a, done-to n, on both words.
  2. "Of the son."
  3. Because "spirit" is neuter, and neuter words use one form for doing-it and done-to (Lesson 2.9). "The" agrees, so it takes the same ending.
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