In short

This lesson covers the words for “someone, no one, something, nothing, all, every, much/many”: κάποιος, κανένας, κάτι, τίποτα, όλος, κάθε, άλλος, ο ίδιος and πολύς. Most of them are adjective-like and decline for gender, number and case; three common ones (κάτι, τίποτα, κάθε) never change at all.

The one thing an English speaker must internalise here is negative concord. Greek does not have a “no one” that negates a sentence by itself. The negative pronoun works only together with δεν in front of the verb: δεν είδα κανέναν, δεν ξέρω τίποτα, δεν πάει πουθενά, δεν ήρθε ποτέ. The two negatives do not cancel each other - they belong together, and dropping δεν is a grammatical error, not an informal shortcut.

The rule

1. Positive indefinites: κάποιος and κάτι. κάποιος, κάποια, κάποιο means “someone, some” and refers to people or to a specific-but-unnamed thing; it declines like an adjective in -ος, -α, -ο. κάτι means “something” and never changes: Κάποιος χτύπησε την πόρτα. Θέλω κάτι κρύο.

2. Negative indefinites: κανένας and τίποτα. These have two jobs, and the difference is the presence of δεν.

• With δεν on the verb they are negative: Δεν ήρθε κανένας. Δεν αγόρασα τίποτα.
• Without δεν, in questions, in conditional clauses (αν, μήπως) and after θέλεις/μπορείς, they mean “any, anything”: Έχεις καμιά ιδέα; Θέλεις τίποτα από το μαγαζί; Αν δεις κανέναν, πες μου.

The negative reading is always accompanied by δεν, in both possible word orders:

Even when κανένας comes first and the sentence is already unambiguously negative, δεν stays. The same holds for the negative adverbs ποτέ (“never”), πουθενά (“nowhere”) and καθόλου (“not at all”): Δεν πάω ποτέ εκεί. Δεν τον βρήκα πουθενά. Δεν πείνασα καθόλου.

3. κάθε against καθένας. κάθε (“each, every”) is indeclinable and stands before a noun, which is singular: κάθε μέρα, κάθε άνθρωπος, κάθε φορά (only a numeral puts it in the plural: κάθε δύο μέρες). When there is no noun, you need the declinable form ο καθένας, η καθεμιά / η καθεμία, το καθένα: Ο καθένας πληρώνει για τον εαυτό του.

4. όλος takes the article. όλος agrees with its noun, and unlike English it stands in front of the article, which cannot be omitted: όλο το βράδυ, όλη τη μέρα, όλοι οι φίλοι μου, όλα τα παιδιά. Standing alone, όλοι means “everybody” and όλα “everything”: Ήρθαν όλοι. Τα ξέρω όλα.

5. άλλος and ο ίδιος. άλλος, άλλη, άλλο means “other, another”; with the indefinite article it means “one more”: άλλον έναν καφέ. ο ίδιος, η ίδια, το ίδιο means “the same” before a noun (το ίδιο πρόβλημα) and “himself/herself/itself” when it emphasises a noun already mentioned: Μου το είπε ο ίδιος ο διευθυντής.

6. πολύς is irregular. It is the only quantifier here with a stem change: three forms have one λ (πολύς, πολύ, πολύ) and everything else has λλ (πολλή, πολλοί, πολλές, πολλά, πολλών…). As an adverb meaning “very, a lot” it is the invariable πολύ: πολύ καλά, μ’ αρέσει πολύ.

Forms & patterns

κάποιος - “someone, some”

Indefinite pronouns have no vocative; that row stays empty in every table below as well.

κανένας / κανείς - “no one, anyone”

κανένας has no plural - it is singular by meaning (“not even one”). κανείς is the slightly more formal nominative (dictionaries mark it as a learned form), κανένας the everyday one; καμία and καμιά are the same word with and without synizesis - three syllables against two - and both belong to ordinary speech, so either spelling is fine. The masculine accusative κανέναν keeps its final -ν in all positions, because that -ν is what separates it from the neuter κανένα.

άλλος - “other, another”

όλος - “all, whole”

ο ίδιος - “the same; himself”

In this use (“the same one; himself”) ίδιος always carries the definite article, which is why the article is shown in the cells; as a plain adjective meaning “identical, alike” it can also stand without one: Αυτά τα δύο βιβλία είναι ίδια. Φοράμε ίδιες μπλούζες σήμερα.

πολύς - “much, many” (irregular)

The weak cell is the masculine and neuter genitive singular πολλού, which dictionaries print only as a bracketed secondary form and which speech avoids. The feminine πολλής is a normal form (λόγω της πολλής ζέστης), and the plural πολλών is very common (τα προβλήματα πολλών ανθρώπων).

The indeclinables and the negative adverbs

Examples

Common mistakes

• Είδα κανέναν στο πάρτι. -> Δεν είδα κανέναν στο πάρτι. - κανένας cannot negate on its own; the verb still needs δεν.
• Κανένας ήρθε. -> Κανένας δεν ήρθε. - even with the negative word in front, δεν is obligatory; the two negatives reinforce each other, they do not cancel.
• Ξέρω τίποτα. -> Δεν ξέρω τίποτα. - without δεν, τίποτα is read as “anything” and the sentence sounds like an unfinished question.
• Πάει πουθενά το βράδυ. -> Δεν πάει πουθενά το βράδυ. - πουθενά, ποτέ and καθόλου follow exactly the same rule as κανένας.
• Δεν είδα κανένα. (about a man) -> Δεν είδα κανέναν. - the masculine accusative keeps its final -ν; κανένα is the neuter form.
• Έχει πολύ ζέστη. -> Έχει πολλή ζέστη. - before a feminine noun the agreeing form is πολλή, with two λ and -ή.
• Μιλάει πολλή γρήγορα. -> Μιλάει πολύ γρήγορα. - as an adverb (“very, a lot”) the word is always the invariable πολύ.
• Δούλεψα όλα το βράδυ. -> Δούλεψα όλο το βράδυ. - όλος agrees with its noun; όλα is neuter plural and cannot go with το βράδυ.
• Ήρθαν όλοι φίλοι μου. -> Ήρθαν όλοι οι φίλοι μου. - όλος stands before the definite article, and the article is never dropped.
• Κάθε μαθητές έχουν βιβλίο. -> Κάθε μαθητής έχει βιβλίο. - the noun after κάθε is singular; only a numeral makes it plural (κάθε δύο μέρες).
• Κάθε ξέρει τι θέλει. -> Ο καθένας ξέρει τι θέλει. - κάθε cannot stand alone as a pronoun; outside the fixed adverbials (κάθε τόσο, κάθε λίγο, κάθε άλλο) and the temporal κάθε (φορά) που it always has a noun after it.

Tips

• Treat δεν … κανέναν / τίποτα / πουθενά / ποτέ as a single frame with two brackets. If you have written the second bracket, check that the first one is there.
• Test the meaning of κανένας by looking at the verb: δεν on the verb gives “no one”; no δεν (a question, αν, μήπως) gives “anyone”. Έχεις καμιά ιδέα; is a normal, fully positive question.
• Spelling shortcut for πολύς: only the three forms πολύς, πολύ(ν), πολύ have a single λ. Everything else - πολλή, πολλοί, πολλές, πολλά, πολλού, πολλής, πολλών, πολλούς - has λλ. If the word ends in -ή, -ά, -οί, -ές, -ών, -ούς, write two λ.
• κάθε is a “glue word”: apart from a few fixed adverbials (κάθε τόσο, κάθε λίγο, κάθε άλλο) and the temporal conjunction κάθε (φορά) που (“every time that”: κάθε που ανοίγω το παράθυρο, μπαίνει κρύος αέρας), it never appears without a noun right after it, and that noun is singular - the one regular exception is after a numeral, where it goes plural (κάθε δύο μέρες, κάθε τέσσερις μήνες).
• Remember the order in όλος: quantifier, then article, then noun - όλη τη νύχτα, όλους τους ανθρώπους. English can drop the article (“all night”), Greek keeps it.
• κάποιος points at a person, κάτι at a thing. If you can replace the English word with “somebody”, use κάποιος; if with “something”, use κάτι.
• Watch the second accent when a proparoxytone noun carries a clitic in these sentences: δεν βρήκα πουθενά το αυτοκίνητό μου, κανένας δεν ξέρει το όνομά της.