Grammars

Many elements of Greek morphology and syntax have been included in the Introductory Courses,- especially Mehr's course is useful because of its index - but apart from this some more systematic grammars and grammatical resources are available on internet:

Digitized reference grammars:

Smyth

This is the full text online of the first edition of Smyth's grammar (1920), as part of the Perseus Project - note that in later editions (1956 and 1984) the section numbers are different. It is the most complete Greek grammar on the web (both morphology and syntax) and, although it is not of the scale of the famous grammars of Kühner and Gerth and of Krüger and Cooper, offers much more than a traditional school grammar. It focuses on classical Attic Greek, is well organized and systematic, and contains lots of examples. These qualities are enhanced by the concept of the online-version, which, starting from an exhaustive Table of Contents page (which can only be viewed completely with Netscape!), makes each section directly accessible by hyperlink.
Another online version of this grammar is offered on a website under construction by G.F. Somsel'''. The presentation is designed to conform to the one of the hard copy, including page breaks and page numbers. In the table of contents one can click on the page number to go to section of interest. Connected sections are also accessible by cross-references. This version does not have the links to the Perseus tools, but on the other hand looks much more neat and transparent, works faster and intends to be more complete, by including the list of abbreviations, and the English and Greek indices. So far, however, only Part I (letters, sounds, syllables, accent) and most sections of part II (Inflection) can be consulted here.

Raphael Kühner, Friedrich Blass, Bernhard Gerth. Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache

(ed. Ildar Ibraguimov, Hannover und Leipzig, 1904). The Perseus Project now offers this prestigious German syntax online: more specifically this covers - Teil I, Bd. 1: R. Kühner, F. Blass. Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache. Elementar- und Formenlehre des Nomens und Pronomens.- Teil II, Bd. 1: R. Kühner, B. Gerth. Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. Satzlehre: Syntaxe des einfachen Satzes. - Teil II, Bd. 2: R. Kühner, B. Gerth. Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. Satzlehre: Syntaxe des zusammengesetzten Satzes.
In contrast to the more practical Weir Herbert Weir Smyth Grammar, Greek grammar is treated here in scholarly detail and illustrated with many more examples. As an online grammar, it is equipped with the same kinds of hyperlinks and tools and with similar 'Tables of Contents' (only fully accessible with Netscape!) as the online version of Smyth's grammar. This makes it by far the most exhaustive and the best research tool available on WWW for Greek syntax and morphology. Only for the moment the part treating the morphology of the verb (Teil I, Bd. 2) is still lacking.

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, ''Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to Demosthenes''

(New York 1900): this syntax by the famous professor of the Johns Hopkins University is presented here online with the same tools and facilities as the Weir other Perseus grammars described above. Because of its somewhat unsystematic structure and the in depth treatment of some topics to the expense of others (for example the uses of the accusative, genitive and dative are simply omitted because they were originally planned for a part that has never been published), this syntax is especially fit for advanced students and scholars. Also, it is noticeable for its numerous original examples.

William Watson Goodwin ''Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb''

(London, Melbourne, Toronto 1889): this famous specialized syntax, the masterpiece of William Goodwin, professor of Greek at Harvard University, can be freely viewed online and is equipped with the same tools and facilities as the Weir other Perseus grammars described above. The grammar has a simple basic structure: apart from the two chapters on the use of the tenses and on the use of the moods there are separate chapters on the infinitive, the participle, the particle ἄν and the verbal adjectives on -τέος (-τέον). But within the detailed treatment of each section, the order is sometimes unexpected and partly determined by the personal grammatical insights of the author - so this is not a grammar for beginners! Although the focus is on classical Greek, Homeric Greek is discussed as well.

First Greek Grammar Syntax by W. Gunion Rutherford

(second edition, London 1912): this school grammar can be viewed and downloaded freely as a pdf-file from the website of Textkit: Greek and Latin Learning Tools. The book encompasses all the main aspects of classical syntax, clearly explaoned for the beginner and with much emphasis on the comparison with the English language.


Internet grammars

Pedalion

Pedalion is a KU Leuven modular grammar, especially devoted to syntax.

Conducted at the University of Leuven between 2013 and 2016, the Pedalion project set out to develop a tool enabling students in Leuven to navigate efficiently through the syntax of Ancient Greek, inspired by the blended learning approach. The project’s name was taken from the Ancient Greek word for “rudder”, namely πηδάλιον. The term πηδάλιον clearly reflects the project’s goal to make Ancient Greek syntax easily navigable by means of its modular structure. The course material consists, among other things, of a dynamically consultable syntax and online exercises, aimed at training both morphology and syntax.

Systematische Grammatik

(by Egon Gottwein): as part of his splendid website [training.htm#Gottweinpersonals Gottwein] offers here a well organized Greek school grammar which, although it is incomplete and has no scholarly ambition, presents most of the basic morphology and syntax in a clear and attractive way: it contains all paradigms of the nouns and adjectives, the complete paradigm of the regular verbs, a very extensive and useful list of principal parts, the syntax of the cases, of the main clause and of the dependent clause. All this is presented with the help of colourful tables and illustrated with lots of short Greek examples and German translations. An orderly Table of Contents gives easy access to this material, which is superb from a didactic viewpoint and at the same time entirely reliable - errors are extremely rare. To view the Greek characters you should have installed a [fonts.htm#Unicode Unicode font].

Overview of Greek Syntax

(by Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox): this overview, which can be consulted on the Perseus Website, currently contains a short description of the elements of Greek Syntax that most students will encounter in first and second year Greek. It lists the various uses of the cases, the tenses, the voices and the moods. Each section contains an example that is linked to the texts in the Perseus digital library and a link to a more complete discussion in Weir Smyth's Greek Grammar. This overview is also integrated to the Morphological Analysis Tool: Greek words in the overview have been linked to the Analysis Tool, and when a user analyzes a word, he can follow links (e.g. 'accusative or 'aorist') from the analysis to the overview.

William W. Goodwin's Greek Grammar

(Revised and Enlarged, Boston 1900): this famous school grammar can be viewed and downloaded freely from the website of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library . The grammar, written by William Goodwin, professor of Greek at Harvard University, as an expanded version of his ''Elementary Greek Grammar'', published in 1870, is influenced by his more scholarly masterpiece ''Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb'', but remains essentially a handbook for students, in spite of its 470 pages. It is very complete, covering phonology, word formation, morphology, syntax as well as versification, and focuses on Attic Greek.

Précis de grammaire grecque

(by Anne-Marie Boxus): this attractive website with a plain structure originated as part of the Bibliotheca Classica Selecta of the Université Catholique de Louvain and is linked with the online projects Hodoi Elektronikai and Helios. The grammar is mainly intended for students to facilitate the reading of Attic authors and does not claim exhaustivity. It encompasses all the main aspects of both morphology and syntax of Attic Greek. In the syntax part there is no general division between the main and the dependent clause, but both are each time dealt with as part of the discussion on a particular mood. The grammatical theory is illustrated by short(ened) quotations from Greek literature.

Ernest De Witt Burton's ''Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek''

(3rd Edition, 1898): this detailed grammar, written by a former Professor at the University of Chicago, deals exclusively with the use of the moods and tenses in the New Testament. Yet grammar is not treated here as an end in itself but as an aid to the interpretation of the New Testament. So it is designed to assist students in the task of translating the Greek New Testament into English forms of thought and expression. As a consequence, this exegetical grammar is full of quotations from the New Testament: to read them in Greek you need the "Bwgrkl" True Type Font, which can be downloaded from this page (with keyboard map). The entire grammar has now been put online and contains chapters on the syntax of the tenses (Tenses of the Indicative Mood, Tenses of the Dependent Moods, Tenses of the Participle), on the use of the finite moods in independent clauses (Indicative, Subjunctive, Optative, Imperative Mood) and subordinate clauses and on the use of the Infinitive and the Participle. The whole grammar can be downloaded as an E-book and is now also being converted to the Word 97, Word Perfect, RTF, and Nota Bene formats.

A Grammar of Septuagint Greek, With Selected Readings,Vocabularies, and Updated Indexes

(by F.C. Conybeare and St. George Stock, originally published by Ginn and Company, Boston 1905): the whole electronic text of this famous grammar (310 pages) except for the indexes and the vocabulary lists can be browsed and viewed both in html- and in image-mode - but in the html-version the Greek characters cannot be seen. The user should not expect to find here a full-scale grammar of Hellenistic or Old Testament Greek. For the greater part this 'grammar' consists of a general introduction to the Septuagint and of selections from the Septuagint with a full-scale commentary. The actual grammar part covers only some 70 pages (p.26-98) and is limited to a systematic overview of the morphological and especially syntactical differences with classical Attic Greek.

Kurzgrammatik für Minimalisten

(by Michael Häußinger): this compact Greek grammar can be downloaded as a Word-document from the website of the Bavarian ''Rhabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium St Ottilien'' and has been written by a teacher in classics to help pupils in acquiring a sufficient basic grammatical knowledge to read Greek texts. In only 28 pages many aspects of Greek morphology and syntax are dealt with in a correct and instructive manner, with the help of many well-ordered tables and short Greek examples. This practice-oriented document contains no morphological paradigms but only the common endings of declensions and conjugations, and the traditional principal parts have been replaced by an alphabetical list of difficult forms of irregular verbs. As to syntax, especially useful are the tables on the uses of the cases, on the various conditional sentences, on the syntactical analysis of participles and on the different meanings of the prepositions. The only obvious disadvantage is the bizarre alphabetical order in which the topics are treated - e.g. indirect speech is to be found under the "Die Indirekte Rede", several pronouns as well as the uses of the particle ἄν under the "Einzelne Wörter und Formen" - but fortunately the user can find his way by means of an index ("Stichwortverzeichnis") at the end.

Curs de sintaxi grega

An extensive and very well-documented Greek syntax in Catalan by Jordi Redondo, Universitat de València.

Web-Gramática Griega

Phonetics, Morphology and Syntax in Spanish by Álvaro Fernando Ortolá Guixot.

Griekse vormleer

(by Leopold Winckelmans): six PDF-files are offered here for free by a Belgian teacher in classics. They contain a well-ordered and rather complete survey in Dutch of the morphology of the nouns, adverbs and numerals. The morphology of the verb, on the contrary, is limited to the paradigm of λύειν, represented in three separate tables. Although the focus of this grammar is on classical Attic Greek, some elements of Homeric morphology are added so as to prepare the pupils for the reading of the Homeric epics.

Greek Grammar (compiled from Wallace and Mounce)

This syntax of biblical Greek is part of The Boston Christian Bible Study Resources and is based upon D.B. Wallace, ''Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: an Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament'' and W.D. Mounce, ''A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek'' (both edited by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan). It contains a quite detailed presentation of the various uses of the cases, tenses, voices and moods as well as surveys of the prepositions, the different kinds of pronouns and the use of the article. However, the examples are all quoted in translation and the remaining Greek words are presented with the Symbol font, without accents.

Daniel B. Wallace, ''Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: an Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament'': "The Participle”

The Biblical Studies Foundation has posted here only one section of this useful syntax, viz. the part on the uses of the participle (pp. 613-655). This easy to read grammar of the New Testament is different from other Greek syntaxes by its focus on exegesis: over 800 theologically significant passages are discussed at some length in the grammar, and most of the discussions are fairly comprehensible to even non-Greek readers. In this section for example the interpretation of Mt 28:19-20 is discussed in the light of the theory on the attendant circumstance participle. To view the Greek on this page you should have installed [fonts.htm#Biblescript the font Greek.ttf from Biblescript fonts].

Curso de Griego Antiguo

(by Juan Guillén Serrano): this basic grammar for high school students offers a systematic overview of Greek grammar. It mainly focuses on morphology (although some succinct syntactic information is given) and is constructed according to a specific teaching programme (in 18 Units). Thanks to its wiki structure, it is constantly being revised and improved. Next to the grammar itself, Serrano’s website offers a fairly extensive vocabulary list (Greek-Spanish).


Some special tools:

Morphological Analysis Tool for Greek

This excellent tool is part of the Perseus Website and allows you to get a full morphological analysis of any Greek form. Suppose that you encounter in a Greek text the form ἡσθείη and are at a loss how to interpret this. The solution is very easy now. You simply type this form in the Morphological Analysis Tool form and get the following result: ἥδομαι: to enjoy oneself, take delight, take one's pleasure, ἡσθείη: aor opt pass 3rd sg" - in addition you can select links to the corresponding [diction.htm#LSJ LSJ]- and [diction.htm#Middle Liddell Middle Liddell]-entry and to a frequency list of the verb ἥδομαι by author. As far as I know from my own experience, the Analysis Tool is very accurate and reliable. For all students who are not successful in memorizing the principal parts this is a miraculous alternative.

Kalόs (version 2.9): a Classic Greek verb conjugator

(by Gonzalo Diaz and Mariana Esplugas): this program, realized by a married couple from Buenos Aires (Mariana is a classicist and Gonzalo a Windows programmer), can be freely downloaded from the Kalόs website. After downloading just run the setup.exe-file to install the software. The program is written in Java, so it is able to run on any platform (Windows, Linux, Macintosh). Essentially it has two functions: given a verb's canonical or "dictionary" form, it is able to present the entire conjugation of this verb, and given a conjugated form it finds out the originating canonical form. So the program also features a "reverse lookup" or "morphological analyzer", comparable to the Morphological Analysis Tool in Perseus. Moreover, there are some attractive additional features: Kalόs produces several styles of conjugation charts, which can be easily printed, and it allows the user to retrieve the compounds of a canonical form. Also, since it is possible to search verbs by meaning, you can start from an English translation and use the program as a dictionary. Alternatively verbs can be searched by alphabetical order or by morphological type (vocalic uncontracted or contracted, consonantic, -μι, etc). Version 2 (up to version 2.9), contains many improvements compared to the previous versions: the presentation is much more attractive and many linguistic errors have been removed. Yet some imperfections remain, such as some wrongly accentuated verbal forms (e.g. λύουσας instead of λυούσας). The user must also take into account the specific linguistic terminology unfamiliar for many of us (for example the aorist tense is never called 'aorist' but is regarded as a 'confective').

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