Relative pronouns [help]

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Relative pronouns [help]

Postby ahmed_crow » 2017-06-03, 9:37

How can I express simply the relative pronouns in Greek (who, whom, whose, which, that) ?

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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby md0 » 2017-06-03, 10:02

The word "οποί-" is what you need. It is declined in the three cases (Nom-Acc-Gen) and the three grammatical genders (Masc-Fem-Neut), so it covers both the differences between who-whom-whose. There's no difference between who-which (person-thing) in Greek, grammatical gender is what matters.

The declension table, courtesy of Wiktionary
Image
(ignore the vocative, there's probably no occasion it makes sense to use the vocative for the relative pronoun)
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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby ahmed_crow » 2017-06-04, 17:55

I've some questions that belongs to relatives, I'll start with these:

1) How can I say "This is the woman whose hands are beautiful."
2) How can I say "This is the woman whose hands I kissed."

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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby md0 » 2017-06-05, 7:48

ahmed_crow wrote:I've some questions that belongs to relatives, I'll start with these:

1) How can I say "This is the woman whose hands are beautiful."
2) How can I say "This is the woman whose hands I kissed."


1) Αυτή είναι η γυναίκα της οποίας τα χέρια είναι όμορφα
2) Αυτή είναι η γυναίκα της οποίας φίλησα τα χεριά

In sentence number 1 it's of course more natural if you say something like "This is the woman with the beautiful hands" (με τα όμορφα χέρια) or "who/that has beautiful hands" (η οποία/που έχει όμορφα χέρια).
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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby ahmed_crow » 2017-06-05, 17:41

Just to be more sure, "τα χέρια" is nominative in "της οποίας τα χέρια είναι όμορφα" because it's normal sentence and "τα χέρια" is the subject but "τα χέρια" in "της οποίας φίλησα τα χεριά" is in accusative, is this right ?

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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby md0 » 2017-06-05, 17:53

Yes, they look and sound the same, but in #1 τα χέρια is in the 'subject' position, therefore in the nominative, while in #2 τα χέρια is the object of the verb, therefore in the accusative.
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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby ahmed_crow » 2017-06-06, 9:23

I suppose that "οποί-" follows the noun that's before it in its case, for example:

1) The book that I read is good.
Το βιβλίο το οποίο διαβάζω είναι καλό.

2) He likes the book that I read.
Αγαπά το βιβλίο το οποίο διαβάζω.

Is this right ?

* I tried to show the case form changing but "το βιβλίο το οποίο" is the same in nominative and accusative :blush:

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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby ahmed_crow » 2017-06-07, 9:30

I tried to use the meaning of "whose" after a preposition and used Google to translate like:

with whose hand is clean
Με το χέρι του οποίου είναι καθαρό

is it correct ?
is this the way to translate "whose" after a preposition ? can't we use ""οποί-" directly to express "whose" after a preposition ?

may be we have to translate it like "with who has clean hand" or "with who is with clean hand" but there's no literally "with whose hand is clean".

Can we do it like "η γυναίκα της οποίας τα χέρια είναι όμορφα" after a preposition that need genitive after it ?

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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby Dark_Horse » 2017-06-17, 13:07

ahmed_crow wrote:1) The book that I read is good.
Το βιβλίο το οποίο διαβάζω είναι καλό.

2) He likes the book that I read.
Αγαπά το βιβλίο το οποίο διαβάζω.

Is this right ?

Yes, those sentences are absolutely correct!

ahmed_crow wrote:I suppose that "οποί-" follows the noun that's before it in its case.

Well, although it's usually this way, that's not always the case.
As you might already know, relative pronouns introduce subordinate clauses, mostly relative clauses. So, it all depends on whether the relative pronoun that refers to another word is the subject or the object of the verb in the relative clause.

EXAMPLES
(I marked the relative clauses with brackets)
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Re: Relative pronouns [help]

Postby Dark_Horse » 2017-06-17, 13:56

ahmed_crow wrote:I tried to use the meaning of "whose" after a preposition and used Google to translate like:

with whose hand is clean
Με το χέρι του οποίου είναι καθαρό

is it correct ?
is this the way to translate "whose" after a preposition ? can't we use ""οποί-" directly to express "whose" after a preposition ?

may be we have to translate it like "with who has clean hand" or "with who is with clean hand" but there's no literally "with whose hand is clean".

Can we do it like "η γυναίκα της οποίας τα χέρια είναι όμορφα" after a preposition that need genitive after it ?

Well, this sentence is incorrect, not because of the relative pronoun and the preposition, but because it doesn't make sense neither in English nor in Greek; we need a subject for the verb "is", but there's none in this sentence.

However, the usage of the relative pronoun with the preposition is correct. Of course, you can also invert the relative pronoun and the noun accompanying the preposition. Let me give an example:

Ο άνδρας με το αυτοκίνητο του οποίου πήγαμε εκδρομή, είναι θείος μου. → The man with whose car we went on an excursion is an uncle of mine.

Or you can invert the relative pronoun with the noun:
Ο άνδρας με του οποίου το αυτοκίνητο πήγαμε εκδρομή είναι θείος μου. → The man with whose car we went on an excursion is an uncle of mine.

In fact, all we just do is split the prepositional phrase and place the relative pronoun between the two parts of the prepositional phrase.
Note that in this case, the genitive indicates possession.

I'll give you another sentence to use your example:

Η γυναίκα από τα χέρια της οποίας ζωγραφίστηκε αυτός ο πίνακας είναι διάσημη. → The woman by whose hands this painting was painted is famous.

Η γυναίκα από της οποίας τα χέρια ζωγραφίστηκε αυτός ο πίνακας είναι διάσημη. → The woman by whose hands this painting was painted is famous.

Please bear in mind that this structure is not very convenient, so we tend to avoid using it in colloquial speech. In every day life we would just say:

Η γυναίκα η οποία ζωγράφισε αυτόν τον πίνακα είναι διάσημη. → The woman that painted this painting is famous.
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