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Negator · Grammar concept
Negator: οὐ ‘no’
οὐ ‘no’ is a negator topic in Koine (biblical) Greek. This page gathers its forms, paradigms, and function, drawn from the lessons of Reading Greek Deeply.
MorphologyNegator – οὐ ‘no’
- οὐ is a proclitic.
- The form of οὐ may change depending on the sound that immediately follows it.
| οὐ + consonant | οὐκαθεύδω |
|---|---|
| οὐ + smooth vowel | οὐκἐσθίω |
| οὐ + rough vowel | οὐχἁρπάζω |
fromLesson 8.4
SemanticsNeg – οὐ (Predicate Negation)
If you recall, the predicate is the part of the sentence that describes who the subject is, what he or she is doing, or a property he or she has (see 5.4.4.2). Most of the time, this is just the verb. In the simplest case, a negative statement says that the predicate is not true of the subject. For example, when we say ἡ νύμφη οὐκ ἐσθίει, it means that the action of eating is not true of the bride. We call this predicate negation, and we introduce other kinds of negation in 50.1.3.
fromLesson 8.4
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