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- "Ποια είναι αυτή η γυναίκα;"
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It might be helpful that in koine (ancient) Gk this would be τίς ἐστί [ἠ γυνὴ] αὕτη; "Who is this [woman]? (Woman is in brackets because ancient Gk often omitted the noun when the demonstrative pronoun indicated the gender.)
Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't αυτή mean she, so shouldn't Αυτό be in its place considering it means that, or this. because otherwise does it not say "Who is she the woman?" I am probably wrong, but I would be grateful if I could understand this which is why I ask for someone to please respond to this post and enlighten me on this aspect of the beautiful Greek language. Thank you.
αυτή also means "she".
But αυτός, αυτή, αυτό all also mean "this" -- or sometimes "that", though εκείνος, εκείνη, εκείνο more specifically means "that". And εκείνος, εκείνη can also mean "he" and "she".
αυτό would be appropriate with a neuter noun such as αυτό το κορίτσι "this girl", but γυναίκα is a feminine noun and so needs αυτή η γυναίκα. For a masculine noun such as αυτός ο τοίχος "this wall", αυτός would be the correct form.
Note that for "this NOUN", Greek needs both αυτός/-ή/-ό and the definite article -- e.g. "This woman sees this man" = Αυτή η γυναίκα βλέπει αυτόν τον άντρα. (Word for word, "this the woman sees this the man" -- bad English but good Greek.)
Thank you for clearing this up and doing so quickly. I understand now. Thanks
1428
I translated this as "Which [one of you] is this woman?"
1) Would this phrase in Greek have been more likely "Ποιος [από σας] είναι αυτή η γυναίκα?" if the speaker were addressing two or more people of possibly mixed gender?
2) But what about in the hypothetical context of "Which [one of you women] is this woman [I've heard so much about]" -- wouldn't "Ποια είναι αυτή η γυναίκα?" be an acceptable version? In other words, in the context I'm positing, could "Ποια" here have been translated acceptably as I did at the top of my comment here?
Almost everything is gendered in Greek. We use ποιος for masculin nouns, ποια for feminine nouns and ποιο for neuter nouns.
This is my second lesson in questions and just like my first lesson in questions, I am getting almost all of the 'when, how, why, what, where' words for the first time, but they are usually not flagged as words that I am hearing for the first time... every once in awhile it has flagged one but most of the time it has not. I pay for my lessons.... but did I miss a lesson somewhere? Or is this how new words are taught as you go further in the program? This the 4th or 5th 'question' word I have seen for the first time but was not flagged as such
Is it mandatory to write "η γυναίκα?" In English, it would translate to, "Who is this the woman?" It is just that in Greek the definite article is mandatory in situations like this?
Yes, in Greek the definite article is mandatory in situations like this -- αυτή η γυναίκα και εκείνος ο άντρας are literally "this the woman and that the man" but in English we say just "this woman and that man".
Similarly with το βιβλίο μου "my book" which is literally "the book my" and also needs the definite article -- you can't say βιβλίο μου or μου βιβλίο.
