απαντάω is best learned bolted to ρωτάω, because between them the case flips: Με ρώτησε → Του απάντησα. The person who is asked is accusative; the person who is answered is genitive, or σε with a full noun. Teach yourself the pair and both stick; teach either alone and neither does.
The flip is not arbitrary. ρωτάω does something to a person — it interrogates them — while απαντάω delivers something to a person, and Greek marks recipients with the genitive right across the vocabulary: του έδωσα, του είπα, του έγραψα, του απάντησα. Line those four up and απαντάω stops looking like an exception; it is ρωτάω that breaks the pattern.
Every form απαντάω has
| Slot | Forms |
|---|---|
| Present | απαντάω/απαντώ, απαντάς, απαντάει/απαντά, απαντάμε/απαντούμε, απαντάτε, απαντάνε/απαντούν(ε) |
| Imperfect | απαντούσα |
| Aorist | απάντησα |
| Dependent (θα, να) | απαντήσω |
| Imperative | απάντα / απαντάτε · απάντησε / απαντήστε |
| Perfect | έχω απαντήσει |
| Gerund | απαντώντας |
| Mediopassive | απαντιέμαι (informal) · learned απαντώμαι, απαντάται |
Government
| Frame | What goes in it |
|---|---|
απαντάω σε
| the question, the letter, the person |
| genitive clitic | the person: Του απάντησα, Μου απάντησε |
| bare accusative | only the content of the reply: τίποτα, ούτε λέξη, ναι |
ότι / πως
| the reported reply |
| no complement at all | Δεν απαντάει — of a phone or a person |
Με ρώτησε γιατί άργησα και δεν του απάντησα.
me rótise yatí áryisa ke dhen tu apándisa
He asked me why I was late and I didn't answer him.
Δεν απάντησες στην ερώτησή μου, την απέφυγες.
dhen apándises stin erótisí mu, tin apéfiyes
You didn't answer my question, you dodged it.
That σε is not optional decoration. What is answered — the question, the email, the objection — is reached through σε, because απαντάω is a verb of responding to something rather than a verb that takes hold of an object. The one thing it does put in a bare accusative is the substance of the reply, which is why Δεν απάντησε τίποτα is perfectly good Greek while the question itself still needs its preposition.
Τι σου απάντησε τελικά; Τίποτα, ούτε λέξη.
ti su apándise teliká; típota, úte léksi
What did he say in the end? Nothing, not a word.
Απάντησε ότι θα το σκεφτεί και θα μας πει την Τρίτη.
apándise óti tha to skeftí ke tha mas pi tin Tríti
He answered that he'd think about it and let us know on Tuesday.
Απάντησε ευγενικά στον πελάτη, ακόμα κι όταν εκείνος φώναζε.
apándise evyeniká ston peláti, akóma ki ótan ekínos fónaze
She answered the customer politely even when he was shouting.
Used absolutely, with nothing after it, απαντάω is what a ringing phone and an unresponsive person have in common:
Χτυπάει το τηλέφωνο δέκα λεπτά και δεν απαντάει κανείς.
chtipái to tiléfono dhéka leptá ke dhen apandái kanís
The phone has been ringing for ten minutes and nobody is picking up.
The second verb hiding in this one
In learned register απαντώ means something no learner guesses from "answer": occur, be found, be attested. It is standard in scholarly and scientific prose, and it is a survival of the ancient sense "meet with" — the thing you are looking for meets you in the text.
Which voice it should take is a genuine, unsettled argument, and both forms are in print today. The dispute is worth understanding rather than memorising: ancient ἀπαντῶ meant "meet, come upon", and something that comes upon you needs no passive marking — hence the active απαντά. Modern Greek reads "is found" as something done to the word rather than something the word does, reaches for the passive, and produces απαντάται. Neither side is going to win.
| Form | Standing |
|---|---|
| active απαντά(formal) | the traditional form; prescribed by Babiniotis, since the ancient verb needed no passive |
| mediopassive απαντάται(academic) | far commoner in modern writing; treated by purists as a needless passive |
Ο τύπος αυτός απαντά και σε παπύρους του δεύτερου αιώνα.
o típos aftós apandá ke se papírus tu dhéfteru eóna
This form is also found in second-century papyri.
Το φυτό απαντάται σε όλη την ανατολική Μεσόγειο.
to fitó apandáte se óli tin anatolikí Mesóyio
The plant occurs throughout the eastern Mediterranean.
Slots this verb leaves empty
- No accusative person in the "answer" sense. There is no ×Τον απάντησα built on Τον ρώτησα: the one you reply to is genitive or σε. An accusative person belongs to a separate, folk-literary απαντώ that means run into, meet — ΛΚΝ gives it its own entry — and nobody uses that one for replying. See genitive vs σε.
- No everyday -μένος participle. απαντημένος exists on paper and almost nowhere else. The adjective Greeks actually use is the negative αναπάντητος "unanswered", which is an α-privative verbal adjective and not a participle of this verb at all.
Έμεινε αναπάντητο το μήνυμα δύο μέρες και άρχισα να ανησυχώ.
émine anapándito to mínima dhío méres ke árchisa na anisichó
The message went unanswered for two days and I started to worry.
Set phrases
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Δεν απαντάει το τηλέφωνο | there's no answer |
| Απάντησέ μου! | answer me! |
| απαντάω στα μέιλ | deal with one's email |
| Έμεινε αναπάντητο | it went unanswered |
| απαντάται σπάνια (academic) | it is rarely attested |
Απαντάω στα μέιλ μου το πρωί, αλλιώς μαζεύονται.
apandáo sta méil mu to proí, aliós mazévonde
I answer my emails in the morning, otherwise they pile up.
Requesting rather than replying is ζητάω; the whole class is indexed on principal parts.
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: απαντάω/απαντώ · απαντούσα · απάντησα · απαντήσω, perfect έχω απαντήσει.
- The case flips against ρωτάω: Με ρώτησε, but Του απάντησα / Απάντησε στον πελάτη.
- σε carries the question; the bare accusative carries only the content of the reply.
- απαντά / απαντάται in learned register means "occurs, is found" — two live forms, one long-running argument.
- The adjective in daily use is the negative αναπάντητος, not απαντημένος.
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Start learning Greek →Related Topics
- ρωτάω/ρωτώ (to ask)A2 — The one speech verb that puts the person in the accusative — Με ρώτησε, Τον ρώτησα — plus the double accusative it licenses, the indirect questions it takes, and the learned twin ερωτώ that supplies the noun ερώτηση and the journalist's ερωτηθείς.
- ζητάω/ζητώ (to ask for/request)A2 — Requesting, not questioning: the person is genitive or από, never accusative-plus-thing. Three ending sets are all in use (ζητάς, ζητά, ζητεί), and the learned mediopassive gives you the ΖΗΤΕΙΤΑΙ of every shop window and το ζητούμενο, 'the point at issue'.
- Indirect Object: Genitive vs σεB1 — The decision page for recipients — genitive clitic for pronouns (Της τηλεφώνησα), σε + accusative for full nouns (Έδωσα το βιβλίο στον Γιάννη), when each rule bends, how the two combine in clitic doubling, and why northern Greek does it with the accusative instead.