BBG Chapter 11 — First and Second Person Personal Pronouns

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Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, Mounce, 4th Edition

1. Introduction to Greek Personal Pronouns

Greek personal pronouns decline for person (1st, 2nd), case (nom., gen., dat., acc.), and number (singular, plural). Unlike nouns, pronouns do not have gender in the 1st and 2nd person (only 3rd person pronouns carry gender).

Because Greek verb endings already encode person and number, the explicit pronoun is often emphatic when it appears as the subject. Including the nominative pronoun stresses the person: "I myself" or "YOU are the one."

2. First Person Pronoun — ἐγώ (I)

Note: The forms with the accent (ἐμοῦ, ἐμοί, ἐμέ) are emphatic — used when the speaker wants to stress the pronoun ("to ME, not someone else"). The unemphatic short forms (μου, μοι, με) are enclitic — they attach to the preceding word without their own accent and are the more common, unstressed forms.

3. Second Person Pronoun — σύ (you)

Note: Like 1st person, the 2nd person has emphatic (accented: σοῦ, σοί, σέ) and unemphatic/enclitic (σου, σοι, σε) forms in the oblique cases. Context determines which is intended, though the distinction is subtle in Koine.

4. Emphatic vs. Unemphatic Use

5. Pronoun as Subject vs. Oblique Cases

6. Possessive Pronouns

Greek can express possession either with the genitive of the personal pronoun or with a possessive adjective:

Note: The genitive pronoun (μου, σου, ἡμῶν, ὑμῶν) is far more common in the GNT than the possessive adjective forms. When you see μου after a noun (e.g., ὁ πατήρ μου — "my Father"), it is the genitive of ἐγώ functioning as a possessive.

7. Third Person Personal Pronoun — Preview of αὐτός

The 3rd person personal pronoun in Greek is αὐτός, -ή, -ό. In its oblique cases (genitive, dative, accusative) it functions as the personal pronoun "him/her/it/them." (The nominative αὐτός has different uses — covered fully in Chapter 12.)

8. Word Order with Pronouns

In Greek, the pronoun's position is flexible but tends to follow the verb or precede a stressed element. Key patterns:

• Genitive pronoun after noun: ὁ πατήρ μου — "my Father" (most common order)
• Genitive pronoun before noun: μου τοὺς λόγους — "my words" (more emphatic)
• Dative pronoun after verb: λέγει μοι — "he says to me"
• Emphatic pronoun before verb: ἐγὼ λέγω ὑμῖν — "I tell you" (contrast/emphasis on "I")

Note: ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ("But I say to you") is a key formula in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5). The presence of ἐγώ emphasizes Jesus as the authoritative speaker contrasting with Moses' teaching.