The Dual Number in Ancient Greek
by Douglas Domingo-Forasté — California State University, Long Beach
Of the items commonly found in prose authors often read by second year Greek students (especially Xenophon) and yet rarely covered in elementary texts including Athenaze the dual number in both nouns and verbs is the most noticeable. What follows is an outline and notes I have used with my second year students the first time we encountered a dual.
Nouns
NVA = Nominative, Vocative and Accusative
GD = Genitive and Dative
| Endings | Examples | |||
| First declension | Fem | Masc | ||
| NVA | -α | τὰ κρήνα | τὼ πολίτα | |
| GD | -αιν | ταῖν κρήναιν | τοῖν πολίταιν | |
| Second declension | Masc | Fem | Neut | |
| NVA | -ω | τὼ ἀνθρώπω | τὰ ὁδώ | τὼ δένδρω |
| GD | -οιν | τοῖν ἀνθρώποιν | ταῖν ὁδοῖν | τοῖν δένδροιν |
| Third declension all Genders | ||||
| NVA | -ε | τὼ παῖδε | ||
| GD | -οῖν | τοῖν παίδοιν | ||
Note the similarity to the GD ending for δύο δυοῖν.
Often feminine nouns take the masculine modifiers, e.g., τὼ καλὼ κρήνα.
Verbs
Present and First Aorist
| The basic primary endings for the second and third persons are | ||||||||||
| active: | 2 | -τον | middle: | 2 | -σθον | |||||
| 3 | -τον | 3 | -σθον | |||||||
| The basic secondary endings for the second and third persons are | ||||||||||
| active: | 2 | -τον | middle: | 2 | -σθον | |||||
| aorist passive: | 3 | -την | 3 | -σθην | ||||||
The thematic vowels are ε/η/οι for the present indicative/subjunctive/optative and α/η/αι for the aorist indicative/subjunctive/optative; aorist passive η/η/ει or ειη.
Often dual subjects take plural verbs and somewhat less frequently dual verbs take plural subjects.
The dual is supposed to be a natural pair, e.g., oxen, eyes, heralds, but often in practice it is a pair only in the mind of the author. It survives into the Byzantine period and is frequent in classical Greek, though it does not appear in the New Testament.
Goodwin Greek Grammar 556.2: "A first person dual in μεθον is found three times in poetry: περιδώμεθον, subj. of περιδίδωμι, Il. 23,485; λελείμμεθον, from λείπω, S. El. 950; ὁρμώμεθον, from ὁρμάω, S. Ph. 1079. Generally the first person plural is used for the dual. The thematic vowel is an omicron."