Combining Determiners

English runs a strict one-determiner policy. The books, these books, my books, all books — but never two at once, and the one apparent exception, all the books, feels like a licence rather than a pattern. Greek has no such policy, because its determiners do not compete for a single slot. A word like όλος or αυτός sits outside the article rather than in its place, which leaves room for the next one, and the next.

The result is phrases like όλα αυτά τα παλιά γράμματα — universal, demonstrative, article, adjective, noun — where four of the five words are inflected and every one of them carries the same gender, number and case. Nothing here is new grammar; it is the article rules and case agreement you already have, applied all at once. What is new is the ordering, and the discipline of changing every element when the case changes.

The template

όλος / quantifier › demonstrative › ARTICLE › numeral › adjective › NOUN › possessive clitic

Two things are worth reading off that line straight away. First, the article is the pivot: όλος and the demonstrative stand in front of it, while numerals and adjectives stand behind it. Second, the possessive clitic is the only determiner that comes after the noun, so it closes the phrase.

One phrase through three cases

This is the drill that makes the pattern automatic. Take all these new employees and move it through the cases. Nothing is optional: every element shifts, including the noun's own accent.

Notice υπάλληλοι → υπαλλήλους → υπαλλήλων: the noun's stress moves one syllable to the right in the accusative and genitive plural, because Greek does not allow an accent further than three syllables from the end. That is not a determiner rule but ordinary noun behaviour, described on accent shift — it is simply very visible in a long phrase like this one.

After a preposition the whole block goes accusative together — there is no way to inflect part of it:

Numerals sit inside the article

A numeral does not stack outside the article the way όλος and αυτός do — it stands between the article and the noun: τα δύο παιδιά, οι τρεις προτάσεις. Add a demonstrative and it goes out in front of the article, leaving the numeral where it was.

A demonstrative also has a second slot available to it, after the numeral: τα δύο αυτά βιβλία, οι τρεις αυτές προτάσεις are as good as αυτά τα δύο βιβλία, and are the commoner shape in writing. With "both" that second slot becomes the only one: Greek says και τα δύο ("and the two") as a fixed block, the demonstrative cannot get in front of και, so it has to slip in after the numeral.

Note also that όλος and a numeral rarely combine: for all three of them Greek reaches for the same block, και οι τρεις, rather than piling όλος on top of a number. Όλοι οι τρεις is not ungrammatical — it just sounds redundant, and native speakers do not reach for it. Which numerals inflect, and what case they impose, is on case with numbers.

Where the possessive clitic lands

In a stacked phrase the clitic goes to the end, after the noun, closing the whole thing:

There is a second slot, in front of the article, and it opens up when όλος heads the phrase on its own: όλα μου τα βιβλία, όλη μου τη ζωή. The clitic has two possible hosts — the first stressed word of the phrase, or the noun — but the high slot is only usable when its host sits directly against the article. Add a demonstrative and όλος is no longer next to the article, so the high slot closes and the end position is the only one left.

The docking rule and its other consequences are on possessive determiners.

όλα αυτά, αυτά όλα, and the floating όλα

With no noun at all, όλα αυτά is one of the most useful chunks in the language — "all this, all of this, this whole business":

The reverse order αυτά όλα exists and is grammatical, but it is marked: it throws the weight onto the demonstrative, and you will meet it far less often. Treat όλα αυτά as the default and do not go looking for a meaning difference in most contexts.

A third possibility is not an ordering variant at all: όλος can detach from the phrase and drift to the end of the clause, still agreeing with what it totals — Αυτά τα βιβλία τα διάβασα όλα. That floating construction, and the reason the ending is then your only clue to what is being counted, is on όλος.

What refuses to stack

Only the article-keeping determiners can queue up: όλος, αυτός, εκείνος, numerals, ο ίδιος. The article-refusers — κάθε, κάποιος, μερικοί, κανένας and the interrogatives — are determiners that occupy the slot themselves, so there is no article for anything to stack on and no second determiner is possible. That single fact rules out a whole family of learner phrases before you ever have to memorise them, and it is why ο ίδιος behaves differently again: it takes the article in front of it, so a demonstrative stacks outside the pair (αυτοί οι ίδιοι άνθρωποι, "these very people"), as described on ο ίδιος. (The one qualification is ο κάθε, where an article does appear in front of κάθε; it adds emphasis or dismissiveness rather than opening a stacking slot — see κάθε and καθένας.)

Common Mistakes

1. Dropping the article inside the stack. The demonstrative does not absorb it, and neither does όλος.

2. Putting όλος behind the article. όλος stands outside it, never between the article and the noun.

3. Inflecting only part of the phrase. The commonest error at B2: the learner puts the noun and the article into the accusative and leaves the front of the queue nominative.

4. Stopping the genitive halfway. όλων and αυτών are easy to get right and then the noun is left in the accusative.

5. Docking the clitic mid-phrase. The pre-article slot belongs to a phrase headed by όλος alone; with a demonstrative the clitic closes the phrase.

Key Takeaways

• The order is όλος / quantifier › demonstrative › ARTICLE › numeral › adjective › NOUN › possessive clitic, and the article is the pivot: όλος and αυτός in front of it, numerals and adjectives behind it.
• Every element agrees in gender, number and case: όλοι αυτοί οι νέοι υπάλληλοι → όλους αυτούς τους νέους υπαλλήλους → όλων αυτών των νέων υπαλλήλων. Half-inflecting the queue is the signature B2 error.
• Numerals sit inside the article (αυτά τα τρία δωμάτια), and a demonstrative may sit either side of the numeral (τα τρία αυτά δωμάτια is equally good). With "both" the fixed block και τα δύο forces the post-numeral slot: και τα δύο αυτά φάρμακα.
• A possessive clitic closes the phrase (όλα αυτά τα βιβλία μου); the pre-article slot (όλα μου τα βιβλία) is available only when όλος heads the phrase on its own.
• όλα αυτά is the neutral standalone chunk for "all this"; αυτά όλα is a marked variant, and a floating όλα at the end of the clause is a different construction again.
• Only the article-keeping determiners stack. κάθε, κάποιος, μερικοί, κανένας and the interrogatives fill the determiner slot themselves and cannot be combined with an article or a demonstrative.