Prepositions

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Introduction

Prepositions, simply put, designate the relationship between two words in a clause; this relationship is generally spatial or temporal, but can occasionally indicate other relationships.

In languages with grammatical case, prepositions will only be followed by (or “take”) certain cases. In Ancient Greek, however, many prepositions can be followed by a genitive, a dative, or an accusative.

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Intermediate

Prepositions, generally speaking, are one of the parts of speech most easily “lost in translation” between languages. Think about the English word “on” – I can put a book on the table, I can live on Court Street, and I can put Doctor Who on TV. Only in the first example is one object truly on the other – my house is not on Court Street, it’s next to it; and Doctor Who is not physically on the TV, it’s being broadcast by the screen. So what does “on” actually mean? Extrapolate this complexity across two languages, and the potential for confusion gets very large very quickly.

Beyond that, situations which share a preposition in one language will not always share a preposition in another language. In English, I live by a card game store, and I am greeted by the owner every time I walk in (side note: judging from those two examples, what in the world does “by” actually mean?). In Greek, I would be greeted ὑπό the owner of the store; but to say that I lived ὑπό the card game store would mean that I live underneath it.

That all is to say – Greek is not going to use the same prepositions in the same situations as English does 100% of the time. We need to learn these use-cases when we learn each individual preposition.

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Unlike in Latin, where most prepositions will take, at most, two of the five cases, Ancient Greek prepositions can regularly take all three of the oblique (non-nominative) cases.

This flexibility exhibited by Greek prepositions creates a situation in which we can only fully understand the meaning of a prepositional phrase by looking at both the basic meaning of the preposition and the force contributed by the case that it’s taking. While learning the basic meaning of a preposition is a matter of vocabulary memorization, the impact that case has on the final meaning of a prepositional phrase can be generally summed up as follows:

Genitive indicates source, and thus separation or motion away
Dative indicates a lack of motion (spatially or temporally)
Accusative indicates motion toward

When we combine the general force of a given case with the basic meaning of a preposition, we are normally able to arrive at the correct meaning of any given prepositional phrase. Take the preposition παρά as an example. The basic meaning of παρά is “next to.” Genitive indicates motion away, so παρά with a genitive will mean you start next to something and move away from it. Dative indicates a lack of motion, so παρά with a dative means you are next to something. Accusative indicates motion toward, so παρά with an accusative means you move toward something until you are next to it. This strategy is, admittedly, not completely foolproof, but is a very useful place to start.

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Morphologically, prepositions exhibit one major idiosyncrasy: if a preposition ends with a vowel and the following word begins with a vowel, the preposition will drop its final vowel. In Ionic, this is not much of a problem:

     κατὰ ὅλου > κατ’ ὅλου
     ἐπὶ ὅρος > ἐπ’ ὅρος

In Attic, however, there is one wrinkle. If the next word begins with an aspirated vowel, and the new ending of the preposition is a voiceless stop capable of aspirating (κ, π, τ), then it will aspirate (to, respectively, χ, φ, θ):

     κατὰ ὅλου > κατ’ ὅλου > καθ’ ὅλου (Attic)
     ἐπὶ ὅρος > ἐπ’ ὅρος > ἐφ’ ὅρος (Attic)

These changes can sometimes make the preposition look very different from its original form, but they will always behave the same way, e.g., κατὰ before a consonant, κατ’ before an unaspirated vowel, and καθ’ before an aspirated vowel.

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Here is a list of some common prepositions in Greek, along with their basic meaning:

what about πρός with the genitive