§ 21. Compensation is not always thus made for the omission of a
consonant. Sometimes the omission occurs too far back in the
derivation to be easily traced.

§ 22. A final vowel is sometimes elided before another vowel, and its
place indicated by the apostrophe, (').

§ 23. There are several _dialects_, which chiefly affect the
vowels, (like provincial pronunciation;) but in later Greek (to which
the New Testament belongs) they were merged in "the common dialect,"
the Attic pre-dominating.


NOUNS.

Nouns are of three declensions, three genders, three numbers, and five
cases, all indicated by changes of termination.

§ 24. The declensions (numbered 1, 2, and 3) are only different modes
of inflection.

§ 25. Names and designations of males, nations, the months, rivers,
and winds, are almost invariably _masculine_; those of females,
countries, islands, cities, trees, and plants, are usually
_feminine_; of the _neuter_ gender are most names of fruits
and diminutives, and always the names of the letters, infinitives,
clauses, indeclinable words, and words used as the symbol of a
sound. In the third declension especially the (grammatical) gender in
many instances is arbitrary.