Weak (Clitic) Pronouns Overview

The pronoun system divides Greek pronouns into two species — the stressed ones you can shout and the unstressed ones you cannot. This page is the complete inventory of the second species, the clitics. The paradigm below holds fourteen forms, all of them one or two syllables long, and between them they carry the direct object, the indirect object and the possessive of essentially every sentence a Greek speaker produces. Counted together they outrank every noun, every adjective and every verb in the language for sheer frequency.

That frequency is why they cannot be postponed. You will not get through a single real conversation without producing a dozen of them, and there is no clumsy-but-correct workaround to fall back on — a strong pronoun cannot stand in for a clitic. So the practical goal is not to understand this table but to stop needing it.

The whole series in one table

Two things to read off that table straight away. First, μας, σας and τους fill both columns — for those three persons the accusative/genitive question never arises, which is a much bigger gift than it looks. The decision procedure for the cells that do differ is on case forms of the weak pronouns; this page is not going to re-derive it. Second, none of these forms begins with ε-. That prefix belongs to the strong series (εμένα, εσένα, εμείς), so an ε- you can hear is a guarantee that the word is not a clitic. The inference only runs that way — the third-person strong forms (αυτόν, αυτήν, αυτούς) have no ε- either, and those you tell apart by their length and their accent.

The half of the series you already know: the article in disguise

Look at the third-person accusative column again: τον, την, το, τους, τις, τα. Those are, letter for letter, the accusative forms of the definite article. That is not a coincidence and not a trap laid for learners — historically they are the same word, and the split into "article" and "pronoun" happened long after the forms were fixed.

The practical consequence is that the same string turns up twice in one sentence doing two different jobs, and the word standing after it is what tells them apart. In front of a noun it is an article. In front of a verb it is a pronoun.

In each of those the first τα / το introduces a noun and the second one introduces a verb, and no Greek listener even registers the repetition. (Saying the object twice like that is a construction in its own right — see clitic doubling — but the form question is settled purely by what follows.)

The genitive column is different, and worth noticing: μου, σου, μας, σας, τους look nothing like the genitive article (του, της, των). Only the third-person singular του and της coincide, and there the same test applies — του παιδιού is an article in front of a noun, του είπα is a pronoun in front of a verb.

"Unstressed" is a syntactic fact, not a detail of pronunciation

A clitic has no accent of its own, and that single property is what fixes everything else about it. Having no accent means it cannot be pronounced in isolation, so it must lean on a neighbouring stressed word — the verb, in almost every case. The Greek term is έγκλιση, "a leaning-on".

The pair becomes one phonological word: μου το έδωσε is spoken as a single unbroken stress unit, exactly like a four-syllable noun. That is why nothing may be inserted between a clitic and its verb, and why a clitic that is stuck behind the verb can force a second written accent onto it (δώσε μού το), which is the subject of the second accent.

Note where the clitic sits in that second one: after θα, before the verb. Particles like δεν, θα, να and μην come first and the clitic slots in behind them. The full trigger list, and the one context that flips the clitic to the other side of the verb, are on where clitics go.

Three jobs, two decisions

Every clitic in the language is doing one of exactly three jobs, and you choose between them before you choose a form.

So there are two decisions, not three. Accusative or genitive is decided by the verb, and it is worked through on direct-object clitics and indirect-object clitics. Verb or noun is decided by what the clitic is attached to, and it is what separates μου είπε ("he told me") from το όνομά μου ("my name") — see possessive clitics.

That one sentence uses all three jobs — accusative με for the person asked, genitive του for the person given something, genitive μου on the noun for the owner — and it is an entirely unremarkable thing to say.

What English gives you, and what it does not

English does reduce its object pronouns in speech — I saw 'im, tell 'er — so the sound of a weak pronoun is not foreign to you. What English never did was give those reduced forms a grammar. They kept the same slot as the full words, behind the verb.

Greek did the opposite: the weak forms got their own slot, in front of the verb, and it is not optional. That is the whole difficulty in one line — not the fourteen forms, which take an afternoon, but the fact that the object arrives before the verb does.

One further asymmetry is worth naming, because it costs beginners whole sentences. English can answer Did you bring it? with a bare I did, leaving the object unsaid. Greek cannot drop a definite object: a transitive verb needs its clitic, so the answer is Ναι, το έφερα and never a bare ×Ναι, έφερα. Where English deletes, Greek pronounces something.

Common Mistakes

1. Giving the third-person plural genitive a gender. The accusative has three plural forms (τους, τις, τα), so learners assume the genitive does too. It does not: τους covers men, women and things.

2. Putting a strong pronoun in the clitic's slot. The position in front of the verb is reserved for the weak series; a stressed form cannot occupy it.

3. Joining two clitics with και. English coordinates its object pronouns freely — I know him and her. Greek cannot: a clitic has no independent existence, so there is nothing there to coordinate. The repair is usually a plural clitic, or else the strong forms (αυτόν και αυτήν).

4. Using a genitive clitic as a plain object. Beginners usually meet μου first, as "my", and then reach for it whenever English says "me". But the verb decides the case, and ξέρω acts on a person directly.

Key Takeaways

• The weak series is fourteen forms: accusative με, σε, τον, την, το, μας, σας, τους, τις, τα and genitive μου, σου, του, της, μας, σας, τους.
• μας, σας and τους are the same in both cases, so the accusative/genitive question only bites in the singular and in the feminine and neuter plural.
• The third-person accusative clitics are the accusative article (τον, την, το, τους, τις, τα). Tell them apart by looking at what follows: noun → article, verb → pronoun.
• A clitic has no accent, so it must lean on the verb; the two become one stress unit, which is why nothing can be wedged between them.
• There are three jobs and two decisions: accusative or genitive (the verb decides), and attached to a verb or attached to a noun (position decides).
• No clitic is ever a subject. A word beginning with ε- (εμένα, εσένα, εμάς) is never a clitic — but the reverse does not follow, since αυτόν, αυτήν and αυτούς are strong forms without it.