Noun – 1st Declension -α, -ης

ObjectivesLearning objectives

• About sibilants and how they may affect surrounding sounds
• The morphology of 1st Declension nouns ending with -α, -ης

VocabularyVocabulary

PhonologyPhonology: Sibilants

You may not have noticed before, but the sounds that make up a language are produced in different places in the mouth and have different qualities associated with them. One such kind of sound is called a sibilant, which is a hissing speech sound like ‘z’ or ‘s’ or ‘sh’ or ‘ch’. As we will see in this lesson, sibilants can sometimes alter the quality of surrounding sounds.

MorphologyMorphology: Noun – 1st Declension -α, -ης

• These nouns have an -α in the ending for the nom and acc sg, but they have -η in the gen and dat sg forms (compare to the -α ending nouns in 6.4.4.1). The pl forms are regular, i.e. they have α in every form except the gen pl.
• Notice how the accent changes according to the short α vowel and the long η vowel endings.
• There is no definitive rule about which words fall into the -α, -ης pattern, but we normally see it with two different types of nouns:
• In words that end in a pair of sounds with at least one sibilant.
• Examples: θάλασσα, which has a double σ, δόξα which has the pair of sounds ‘k’ and ‘s’ in the letter ξ, or τράπεζα which has the pair of sounds ‘z’ and ‘d’ in ζ.
• In words that end in a pair of sounds that contain ν, particularly with ρ or θ as well.
• Examples: ἄκανθα, γέεννα, and πτέρνα.