 | Cases with Questions |
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Hello, I am getting confused with cases (accusative vs. genetive) when using question words. We say: πόσων χρόνων είσαι; I assume we use the genetive forms "πόσων" and "χρόνων" because someone, in a way, possesses the years. However, if we say: πόσων καιρό μένετε εδώ; Given the options πόσους/πόσων and καιρό/καιρόυ, how did we choose "πόσων καιρό" ? Sorry if this is a complicated question. Any insight anyone has would be much appreciated! Thanks, Chris |
| Re: Cases with Questions |
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In your example πόσων καιρό μένετε εδώ, you've confused and misspelled the word: it's not genitive plural πόσων, it's accusative singular πόσον, part of the accusative expression of time πόσον καιρό = how much time? -or- how long? So the complete sentence, with the appropriate colloquial English equivalent, is actually: Πόσον καιρό μένετε εδώ; = How long have you lived here? Hope this helps, Greg Brush |
| Re: Cases with Questions |
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Greg, Thanks for your response... a few more questions: -I thought that "πόσος" declined like a ος/η/ο adjective and so the accusative singular would be "πόσο"? -Regardless, having the expression be an all accusative expression actually makes a lot of sense. I would now tend to assume that the case of the question word generally agrees with the case of the following noun? -With the genetive expression "πόσων χρόνων," "years" is kind of the object. Does genetive usually override accusative when possession is involved, or is it kind of case by case and you just need to learn the expression? Thanks again for your help! Chris |
| Re: Cases with Questions |
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a.) Accusative πόσον may retain its ancient/classical final accusative -ν in speech, especially before a vowel sound or π, τ, κ. This is also the way you will see this expression written (i.e., as πόσον καιρό) in more formal writing. For a little more about this issue of the ancient/classical final -ν in the accusative singular, see "FYI: final accusative -ν" and "στη ή στην", both in Discussion Forum 20, the lesson where the masculine and feminine accusative singular is formally introduced.. b) If the question word is an adjective such as πόσος, yes the adjective must always agree in gender, number, and case with its noun, whether that noun is expressed or implied. If, however, the question word is an indeclinable pronoun such as τι; ("what?"), there can be no such inflectional agreement. c.) The genitive case was historically used to measure amount -- distance, time, weight, price, value -- and can still be seen in this use today in more formal writing. Thus an expression such as Είμαι είκοσι τεσσάρων χρονών is equivalent to "I am [of an extent of time of] twenty four years [old]". Regards, Greg Brush |
