POS tags
| Open class words | Closed class words | Other |
|---|---|---|
| ADJ | ADP | PUNCT |
| ADV | AUX | SYM |
| INTJ | CONJ | X |
| NOUN | DET | |
| PROPN | NUM | |
| VERB | PART | |
| PRON | ||
| SCONJ |
ADJ: adjective
Definition
The adjective is in Ancient Greek the PoS that normally agrees with a nominal in Gender, Number, and Case. The adjective can be used attributively or predicatively.
Attributive adjective
The attributive adjective directly modifies a nominal (Smyth 1920: 272-275).
Examples
- ὁ δίκαιος ἀνήρ “the just man”
Predicative adjective
The predicative adjective depends on the copula or a copular verb (Smyth 1920: 275-278). Note that there are pecularities concerning the position of the attributive adjective (Smyth 1920: 295-297).
Examples
- ἡ δὲ χάρις ἄδηλος γεγένηται “the favour has been concealed” Aes. 3.233.
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
ADP: adposition
Definition
Adposition is a cover term to include both prepositions and postpositions, i.e., invariable words specifying the function of a nominal with respect to, prototypically, a verb (or adjective). in Ancient Greek most adpositions are prepositions. Adpositions can also, especially in Homeric poetry, function as adverbs: it is sometimes very hard to decide whether they are adverbs or adpostions.
Prepositions
A list of prepositions and an overview on their functions can be found in Smyth 1920: 365-388.
Examples
- ἀπὸ θαλάσσης “from the sea” (T. 1.7)
- δι(ά)᾽ ὤμου “through (the) shoulder” (Il. 4.481)
- περὶ πατρίδος “for (the) country” (T. 6.69)
Postpositions
In antiquity postpositions were considered to be prepositions which can also in some genre/author appear after their dependents: this is known as an example of anastrophe (Smyth 1920: 40-41; note that accent in dissyllabic prepositions is shifted back). Postpositions especially - but not exclusively - occur in poetry.
Examples
- τούτων πἐρι “about these things”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
ADV: adverb
Definition
Adverbs can be morphologically defined as a set of words whose form is fixed. A number of adverbs were originally nouns in a certain case (see, for example, the adverbial accusative in Smyth 1920: 361).
Syntactically, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs have to be distinguished from particles, even though the criteria for such distinction are not always clear-cut (see definition for PART).
Examples
- σοφῶς “wisely”
- ὁμόσε “to the same place”
- πῶς “how?”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
AUX: auxiliary verb
Definition
In Ancient Greek auxiliary verbs are restricted to forms of the verb εἰμί in the perfect middle system (Smyth 1920: 178-180) and perfect and pluperfect periphrastic forms (Smyth 1920: 182-183).
Examples
- λελυμένοι ὦσι “they have been released” (subjunctive)
- λελυκὼς ἴσθι “loose”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
CONJ: coordinating conjunction
Definition
Coordinating conjunctions are invariable words that connect two constituents without subordination. In Ancient Greek some conjunctions can also function as adverbs.
Examples
- καί “and”
- τε “and”
- ἀλλά “but”
DET: determiner
Definition
The term “determiner” is not employed in traditional grammars for Ancient Greek. In accordance with the UD guidelines, this category can subsume in Ancient Greek the following categories (for a list see Smyth 1920: 90-89):
Examples
- article: ὁ
- demonstrative pronouns used adjectively: ἐκεῖνος, οὗτος, ὅδε, αὐτός, τοσόσδε, etc.
- possessive pronouns used adjectively: ἐμός, σός, etc.
- interrogative pronouns used adjectively: πότερος, etc.
- relative pronouns used adjectively: ὅς
- indefinite pronouns used adjectively: ἄλλος, πᾶς, etc.
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
INTJ: interjection
Definition
Interjection is an invariable word which is typically used in exclamations to express joy, pain, etc.
Examples
- ὦ “oh”
- ἀμήν “verily”
NOUN: noun
Definition
A noun can be defined in Ancient Greek as the PoS inflecting for case, number, and (typically one) gender. Some adjectives might be confused with nouns, they being very often used as substantivized adjectives (e.g., Ἀθηναῖος). In general, the LSJ should be used if doubt arises.
Examples
- λογεύς, έως, ὁ, “speaker”
- λῆμμα, ατος, τό, “anything received”
- ὕδωρ, ὕδατος, τό, “water”
References
Liddell, Henry George Liddell, and Robert Scott. 1940. A Greek-English lexicon. Revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Perseus Digital Library)
NUM: numeral
Definition
In Ancient Greek grammar “numeral” is the PoS reserved for cardinal and ordinal adjectives, as well as adverbs such as ἅπαξ ‘once’. A list for them can be found in Smyth 1920: 102-106.
In accordance with the UD guidelines, only cardinal numbers are tagged as NUM, whether they are adjective or substantivized adjectives. Ordinal numbers are, following the UD guidelines, tagged as adjectives, while adverb numerals receive the PoS ADV.
Examples
- τρεῖς, τρία “three”
- πεντεκαίδεκα “fifteen”
- ὀκτακόσιοι “eighty”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
PART: particle
Definition
In Ancient Greek grammar the term particle is used as a cover term for words belonging to different PoS.
With reference to UD, only those words that do not clearly belong to any other part of speech are labeled as PART. The list for them can be found in Smyth 1920: 631-671, excluding (coordinating and subordinating) conjunctions and adverbs such as καί ‘even’. Most Ancient Greek particles can be defined as sentence adverbs.
Examples
- ἀτάρ “however”
- αὖ “on the other hand”
- δή “certainly”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
PRON: pronoun
Definition
A pronoun is in Ancient Greek a word standing for a noun or a NP (and, like nouns, it inflects for gender, number, and case). It is to be noted that in Ancient Greek traditional grammars, as well as in other frameworks for other languages, the term (pro-)noun covers a class of words used as both nouns and adjectives. Following the UD guidelines, the label PRON is employed only for pronouns standing for nouns only. When they are used as adjectives, they are labeled in UD as DET.
A list for Ancient Greek pronouns can be found in Smyth 1920: 90-98.
Examples
- τίς “who?”
- ἐκεῖνος “that one”
- ἐγώ “I”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
PROPN: proper noun
Definition
A proper noun is a noun referring to a (more or less) unique object, such as a person or a country.
Examples
- Ἀθῆναι “Athens”
- Δημοσθένης “Demosthenes”
PUNCT: punctuation
Definition
Punctuation marks in Ancient Greek texts have in general been added by modern editors. There are four main punctuation marks that can be found in modern editions: comma (COMMA “U+002C”), period (FULL STOP “U+002E”), the point above the line (MIDDLE DOT “U+00B7” corresponding to a an English colon or semicolon), and question mark (SEMICOLON “U+003B”).
The mark for elision (Smyth 1920: 23-24) is the apostrophe (COMBINING COMMA ABOVE “U+0313”). Crasis (Smyth 1920: 22-23) and aphaeresis (Smyth 1920: 24) are signaled by a smooth breathing (COMBINING COMMA ABOVE “U+0313”) standing either on the vowel/diphthong resulting from crasis or for an elided ε at the beginning of a word (aphaeresis).
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
SCONJ: subordinating conjunction
Definition
A subordinating conjunction is an invariable word introducing a subordinate clause, i.e., a clause which is dependent on a superordinate clause. A list of subordinate conjunctions can be found in Smyth 1920: 631 (and references therein).
Examples
- ὅτι “that”
- εἰ “if”
- ὅτε “when”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
SYM: symbol
Definition
Symbol is used for a diacritic not belonging to punctuation, such as marks used in critical editions.
Examples
- <
- [
VERB: verb
Definition
A verb is in Ancient Greek the PoS inflecting for number, tense, mood, and voice (participles also inflect for gender and case). A treatment on verb inflection can be found in Smyth 1920: 106-224.
Examples
- ἐποίησα “I made”
- φανεῖ “he shows/will show”
- διδόμενος “given”
References
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1920. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. New York: American Book Company (Perseus Digital Library; Internet Archive).
X: other
X is not used.