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Lesson 2.9 · Nouns

Neuter nouns

Why neuter words use one form for doing it, done to and spoken to.

Neuter words — the ones whose gender vowel is e — work exactly like every other word with one difference: they do not distinguish doing it, done to and spoken to. All three are a single form ending in -m.

JobMasculineNeuter
doing itlogosbibliem
done tologon
spoken tologor
oflogoubiblieu
to / forlogobiblie

So a neuter word has three forms where other words have five. If you see a word ending -em or -eim, it is neuter, and it is either doing the action or having it done — the rest of the sentence tells you which:

pneumem tos theos.
God is spirit. (John 4:24) — theos takes the -s, so pneumem is what he is.

Vis avō tem fōtem tou kosmou.
You are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)

The neuter

Greek spells the neuter nominative, accusative and vocative identically — in every declension, singular and plural — so a neuter word never tells you whether it is the subject or the object. Biblang says the same: one direct case, -m, for all three.

pneum-e-m (spirit, subject or object) · pneum-e-u (of a spirit) · pneum-e (to a spirit); plural pneum-e-i-m.

Masculine and feminine have five cases; the neuter has three. Word order and the words around it show which it is, exactly as they do in Greek.

In the Greek — this is not a simplification

Greek spells the neuter subject and object identically in every declension, singular and plural — τὸ πνεῦμα is both, and always has been. So a Greek reader has the same three-way form and works out the role from context. Biblang does not resolve what the Greek leaves open; it says the same thing the same way.

Practice

  1. Is onomem doing something, or having something done to it?
  2. What is teu euangelieu?
  3. What is biblieim?
Show the answers
  1. Impossible to say from the word alone, and that is correct — "name" is neuter, so one form covers both. The sentence around it decides.
  2. "Of the gospel" — neuter e, then the -u of Lesson 2.5. (It opens Mark 1:1.)
  3. "Books", subject or object — bibli·e·i·m, with the plural i from the last lesson.
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