Being and describing

Being and describing

εἰμί is one of Greek’s most frequent verbs. With it, noun and adjective forms describe the subject: ὁ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός ἐστιν. Article position can later distinguish attributive from predicate description.

A linking verb joins two nominative expressions

εἰμί ‘I am’ is irregular and extremely frequent. Useful forms include εἶ ‘you are,’ ἐστίν ‘he/she/it is,’ ἐσμέν ‘we are,’ ἐστέ ‘you all are,’ and εἰσί(ν) ‘they are.’ Like other Greek verbs, these forms can stand without a written subject pronoun because the ending identifies person and number.

A form of εἰμί does not transfer an action to a direct object. It links a subject with identity or description. In ὁ πολίτης σοφός ἐστιν, both πολίτης and σοφός are masculine nominative singular: ‘The citizen is wise.’ The adjective describes the subject and therefore agrees with it.

Article position changes the structure

The phrase ὁ σοφὸς πολίτης places the adjective between article and noun and means ‘the wise citizen.’ ὁ πολίτης ὁ σοφός can also be attributive, literally ‘the citizen, the wise one.’ By contrast, ὁ πολίτης σοφός ἐστιν presents σοφός as a predicate: ‘The citizen is wise.’ Greek article patterns help distinguish a description inside a noun phrase from one asserted by the clause.

Apply agreement in ἡ θεὰ ἀγαθή ἐστιν and τὰ δῶρα καλά ἐστιν. ἀγαθή is feminine nominative singular with θεά; καλά is neuter nominative plural with δῶρα. The second sentence keeps singular ἐστιν under the neuter-plural agreement rule, but the adjective itself remains plural.

Predicate description

With εἰμί, a predicate noun or adjective describes the nominative subject: ὁ ἀνὴρ σοφός ἐστιν, ‘the man is wise.’ An adjective still agrees in gender, number, and case. Article position can distinguish ‘the good man’ from ‘the man is good,’ so read the entire phrase.