Interrogative and indefinite pronouns

Now we add two more types of pronouns to those pronouns you have already learned, demonstrative pronouns, personal pronouns for the third person, and relative pronouns. As you have learned with those examples, these pronouns, interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns, take the place of nouns or modify nouns adjectivally. You will see that these pronouns in ancient Greek resemble one another, and so paying attention to accentuation is especially important in distinguishing them and understanding the clause in which they appear.

Interrogative pronoun

Interrogative pronouns are so named because they are used to ask questions. The interrogative pronouns in English are who?, which?, and what?.

Who goes there?

Whom did she see?

Which do they want?

What did he do?

We have already seen that these English words are used as relative pronouns as well, and so the context of their use—whether in a question or a relative clause—indicates the type of pronoun. Ancient Greek has different pronouns for these uses.

As we saw with the relative pronoun, the English pronoun who as an interrogative is also inflected: who is nominative, whose is the possessive genitive, and whom is the objective case, used with prepositions in English and as the object of the verb, corresponding to other uses of the genitive, and uses of the dative and the accusative.

Like which and what in English, the interrogative pronoun in ancient Greek can also be used as an interrogative adjectives, modifying a noun.

Which friend did she see?

What crime did he commit?

In ancient Greek the interrogative pronoun and adjective is τίς, τί. It belongs to the third declension, and it has one set of forms for the masculine and feminine, and another for the neuter. τίς, the masculine and feminine form, corresponds to “who, whose, whom?” The neuter τί corresponds to English “What?” and can also be used as “why?”.

Declension of τίς, τί

Case	Singular		Plural
	Masculine & Feminine	Neuter	Masculine & Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	τίς	τί	τίνες	τίνα
Genitive	τίνος or τοῦ	τίνος or τοῦ	τίνων	τίνων
Dative	τίνι or τῷ	τίνι or τῷ	τίσι or τίσιν	τίσι or τίσιν
Accusative	τίνα	τί	τίνας	τίνα

Notes of the forms of τίς, τί

The acute accent on these forms always remains acute, even when the rules of accentuation in a sentence say that it should become grave. We can compare that raised tone of the acute to the raised tone in asking a question in American English.
More than one form exists in the gentive singular and dative singular, and the second form will have to be distinguished from the article in context.
The dative plural τίσι will have a nu-moveable added when the next word begins with a vowel.

Indefinite pronoun

Indefinite pronouns are used in place of or to refer to persons or things that are unspecified, unknown, or uncertain. In English, indefinite pronouns include anyone, anybody, anything, someone, somebody, and something.

He talks to anyone.

Someone came into the room.

She did not see anything.

In ancient Greek the indefinite pronoun is τις, τι. Like the interrogative pronoun, it belongs to the third declension, and it has one set of forms for the masculine and feminine, and another for the neuter. The difference between the forms of two pronouns in ancient Greek lies in the accent alone.

The indefinite pronoun can also be used as an adjective, equivalent to English some or any or [a] certain.

He was talking to some friends.

Any books left behind were removed.

“a certain elderly person approaches me” (from Lysias 1.15: προσέρχεταί μοί τις πρεσβῦτις ἄνθρωπος)

Declension of τις, τι

Case	Singular		Plural
	Masc. & Fem.	Neuter	Masc. & Fem.	Neuter
Nominative	τις	τι	τινες	τινα
Genitive	τινος or του	τινος or του	τινων	τινων
Dative	τινι or τῳ	τινι or τῳ	τισι or τισιν	τισι or τισιν
Accusative	τινα	τι	τινας	τινα

Notes on the forms of τις, τι

These forms are enclitic. See the following section for more on accent rules for enclitics. Accent is what distinguishes the interrogative form from the indefinite. According to the rules of accentuation, if the two-syllable forms are accented in a sentence, the accent will be on the ultima. That will continue to help to distinguish them from the interrogative forms, which are accented on the penult.

More than one form exists in the gentive singular and dative singular, and the second form will have to be distinguished from the article in context. These forms are also enclitic.

The dative plural τισι will have a nu-moveable added when the next word begins with a vowel.