Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 February 22

= February 22 =

Greek declension question
I'm trying to figure out the declension of the word for "Colossian" in Paul's letter πρὸς Κολοσσαεῖς. Online sources seem to suggest that the nominative singular would be Κολοσσαεύς, but if so, wouldn't the expected accusative plural be something like Κολοσσαέας (cf. Εὐβοέας), not Κολοσσαεῖς? Lazar Taxon (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This seems to be a common property of biblical Koiné Greek as opposed to classical Attic. Friedrich Blass, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, treats this in §46(2c) on p.37 . Accusative plural endings in -eas in the 3rd declension regularly get replaced by the nominative plural ending -eis. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The standard contraction rules in the older language were that epsilon + alpha becomes eta, while epsilon + epsilon becomes a long vowel written with epsilon iota, which explains the nominative plural form. AnonMoos (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2023 (UTC)