Talk:Modern Greek grammar

Question about negation in Greek
I've read the part about κανείς, καμία, κανένα. It says there are no plural equivalents of these words ("only singular"). This leads me to the question:

How do you translate the phrase "I haven't got any friends" without the plural forms?

1. Dev exw kaveva filo. I don't have a friend.

2. Dev exw filous. I don't have friends.

The second one feels good to me but it lacks the emphasis in my opinion.

Salutes, 1stLtLombardi (talk) 21:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Although I know it's too late to answer this, the second form lacks the emphasis indeed. The κανένας/καμία/κανένα pronoun literally means "none", "not even one" (< καν + ένας). So it's by definition impossible to use it in plural number. It's totally equivelant to ancient Greek οὐδεὶς/οὐδεμία/οὐδὲν and μηδεὶς/μηδεμία/μηδὲν negative pronouns, also used in singular only. Notice that the neutral form (μηδὲν) is still used in Modern Greek as a numeral for "zero"--79.131.4.57 (talk) 17:54, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to add to the above, yes, in essence your translation, 1stLtLombardi, is misleading. «Δεν έχω κανένα φίλο» can be rather emphatic depending on which word you put the emphasis on. I would translate that as "I have no friends". Note that the number doesn't agree (in greek it's singular, in english the best equivalent expression is in the plural). I think the best way to understand this, is to translate as "In terms of friends, I have someone/none" etc. In summary, I would offer these translations as equivalences:

1. Δεν έχω φίλο. <->    I don't have a friend  (= In terms of friends, I don't have one)

2. Δεν έχω κάποιον φίλο <->  I don't have any friends (e.g. someone specific to go to). (= In terms of friends, I don't have someone).

3. Δεν έχω κανένα φίλο <-> I don't have any friends (e.g. in this world / anyone to talk to in general) (= In terms of friends, I don't have anyone / I have none)

4. Δεν έχω κανένα φίλο <-> I don't have any friends / I have no friends. (= In terms of friends, I don't have anyone / I have none)

5. Δεν έχω φίλους      <->  I don't have friends. (= In terms of friends, I don't have (any) )

6. Δεν έχω τίποτα φίλους <-> I don't have any friends (= In terms of friends, I don't have anything / I have nothing)

7. Δεν έχω τίποτα φίλους <-> I don't have any friends / I have no friends (= In terms of friends, I don't have anything / I have nothing).

8. Δεν έχω καθόλου φίλους <-> I don't have any friends at all (= In terms of friends, I don't have any at all)

9. Δεν έχω καθόλου φίλους  <->   I don't have any friends at all! (= In terms of friends, I have none at all)

Tpapastylianou (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

About translation of Έχω την επιταγή γραμμένη, 'I have written the cheque')
I think the translation of Έχω την επιταγή γραμμένη, 'I have written the cheque') should be "I got the cheque written", Since it's passive voice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoshiciv (talk • contribs) 13:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

That's true, since έχω την επιταγή γραμμένη doesn't even imply that I've written it. If anything, it implies the opposite, that someone else has written it and that I simply have it. LightningLighting (talk) 22:45, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Syllabification and Hyphenation in Modern Greek
Is someone able to write something about these topics or to create new articles? I am not sure, maybe these two topics belong to the article Greek orthography. Informationskampagne (talk) 22:01, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

An Inconsistency with the Pronouns Table
Which one is the correct one? The table from here or the table from Wikibooks???
 * A part of the Wikibooks Modern Greek Pronoun Table.png

This is (a part) of the table from Wikibooks (page here: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_Greek/Lesson_03.3 )
 * Greek Pronouns Table from Wikipedia.png

And this is the table from Wikipedia The part where the inconsistency is has been marked with a blue line/circle. Hutreb (talk) 11:36, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The table here at Wikipedia is the correct one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:45, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Perfect formations
Why isn't the perfect imperative (προστακτική παρακειμένου) mentioned? Έχε γράψει means "have written!", As in "Όταν γυρίσω, έχε κάνει τις ασκήσεις σου", "when I come back, have done your excercises!" (the best way I could translate this). We also substitute for this φρόντισε να έχεις which means "you better have..." Or "take good care so that you..." LightningLighting (talk) 22:48, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * But is that "perfect imperative" really a thing in Modern Greek? I cannot find it mentioned anywhere in the literature, nor can I find authentic examples of it out on the web. All the references to a "προστακτική παρακειμένου" I found were referring to ancient Greek; all instances of "έχε" in Google search were obvious misspellings for "έχει"; and the few books that do seem to mention a perfect imperative in Modern Greek (e.g. a textbook from 1962 and a recent work on medieval and early modern Greek) describe a different construction, not "έχε γράψει" but "έχε το [+object] γραμμένο". If this thing exists at all, it looks like it's similarly marginal as "have it done" is in English. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:10, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds idiomatic/dialectical to me. "έχε κάνει τις ασκήσεις σου" doesn't sound wrong necessarily, but it does sound a little strange. The subjunctive construction in this case would sound much more natural (Μέχρι να γυρίσω, να έχεις κάνει τις ασκήσεις σου! Αλλιώς...) It's at minimum a somewhat wooden and archaic construction (again, perhaps not in certain dialects. I am thinking of Modern Athenian Greek). Atmilios (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Greek to me
Seems kind of pointless to have all the examples written in Greek alphabet. The layperson can't use this article unless said layperson can read it. This is an article for scholars and not the general public as written. Greyspeir (talk) 15:43, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * You have a point. I notice that Russian grammar uses the Cyrillic alphabet consistently, with no transcriptions, while Japanese grammar and Arabic grammar consistently use the native writing system plus transcriptions, and Sanskrit grammar uses only transcriptions. The ideal would be to include transcriptions, but to allow the user to choose the form they wanted to see (native only, native + transcription, transcription only). I don't know if we can currently do that. --Macrakis (talk) 16:52, 11 January 2024 (UTC)