27 Comments
- 14
- 12
- 10
- 5
- 5
- 5
- 3
Both are correct answers!!! ποιανού is the masculine genitive, while ποιανής is the feminine genitive. In this sentence we imply the owner of the coffee is a woman :)
- 23
- 18
- 15
- 15
- 10
- 9
- 6
On the other hand, if we use ποιανού, we don't imply anything about the owner's gender.
- 25
- 23
- 18
- 13
- 13
- 12
- 6
- 4
If you already know the owner, why imply the gender? unless you've already narrowed it down to a small field of female suspects ;)
If you don't know the gender of the owner, would you always default to ποιανού?
- 11
- 9
- 7
- 7
- 7
- 4
- 2
"Ποιανής είναι αυτή η σερβιέτα;" (σερβιέτα= panty liner) As you can see, in this case you can't say "Ποιανού είναι αυτή η σερβιέτα;".
- 23
- 18
- 15
- 15
- 10
- 9
- 6
Ποιανής means all suspects are female, yes.
And yes, always use ποιανού if you don't know anything about the owner's gender.
- 12
- 8
- 3
Maybe you're in a room full of women? Therefore, "Ποιανής είναι αυτός ο καφές;".
So when I answer "Which woman does this coffee belong to?" why is this marked wrong?
- 15
- 15
- 14
- 14
- 13
- 12
- 11
- 10
- 10
- 9
- 9
- 9
- 9
- 8
- 8
- 7
- 7
- 6
- 6
- 6
- 6
- 5
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
Too much information. It could be a group of girls, or mixed group of women and girls, or even a group of anthropomorphic cows in a story. (Actually, I've heard of people feeding coffee to their pets, so it's not that far-fetched.)
And it doesn't really correspond. In English, saying ‘woman’ goes out of your way to point out that they're all women. In Greek, however, we're not going out of our way to say that they're all female. If you know that they're all female, and you don't imply it, then you're grammatically wrong. It's automatic. (At least, that's how similar things work in Spanish. I don't know Greek that well.)
- 24
- 5
I suspect it is because αυτός means "this", not "that". Greek, like English, has demonstrative pronouns for two degrees of distance - αυτός for the nearer and εκείνος for the farther.
- 19
- 19
- 9
- 9
Is "Τίνος είναι αυτός ο καφες;" acceptable? I didn't type this but I'd find "τίνος" easier to remember and spell correctly.
It is here, yes, because you need the nominative case καφές and not the accusative case καφέ.
αυτός ο καφές is the subject of the verb "to be" here.
- 13
- 9
- 4
is : " whose is this coffee" a correct answer ? à qui est le café ? de qui est le café ???
- 13
- 12
- 10
- 8
- 7
- 3
- 2
- 2
I've notice in the pronunciation of this sentence that the first three words a pronounced as one word. What are the grammar rules when this takes place in Greek?
I think this could be ποιᾶς, too. I think there are two forms for possessive (genitive). But maybe that's archaic. I'm working from Adams, Essential Modern Gk Grammar (1987).
