Greek noun declensions underwent considerable alteration, with irregular and less productive forms being gradually regularized (e.g. ancient ἀνήρ being replaced by άντρας (man)).
Another feature is the merging of classical accusative and nominative forms: They are only distinguished in Demotic by their definite articles, which continued to be declined as in Ancient Greek.
Exceptions are foreign loans like μπαρ (bar), learned forms ύδωρ (from Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, water), and exclamations like αχ!
Word-final consonant clusters are also rare, again mainly occurring in learned discourse and via foreign loans: άνθραξ (coal – scientific) and μποξ (boxing – sport).
[3]: X The future tense and the subjunctive and optative moods, and eventually the infinitive, were replaced by the modal/tense auxiliaries θα and να[citation needed] used with either the simplified or fused future/subjunctive forms.
[3]: XI Demotic Greek also borrowed a significant number of words from other languages, including Italian and Turkish, something which Katharevousa avoided.
They were not present in traditional Demotic and only entered the modern language through Katharevousa (sometimes as neologisms), where they are used mostly in writing (for instance, in newspapers), but also orally, especially words and fixed expressions are both understood and actively used also by non-educated speakers.
[3]: 180 : 203 Special dative forms: Modern Greek features many letter combinations that were avoided in traditional Demotic: Native Greek speakers, depending upon their level of education, may often make mistakes in these "educated" aspects of their language; one can often see mistakes like προήχθη instead of προήχθην (I've been promoted), λόγου του ότι/λόγο το ότι instead of λόγω του ότι (due to the fact that), τον ενδιαφέρον άνθρωπο instead of τον ενδιαφέροντα άνθρωπο (the interesting person), οι ενδιαφέροντες γυναίκες instead of οι ενδιαφέρουσες γυναίκες (the interesting women), ο ψήφος instead of η ψήφος (the vote).
[citation needed] One of the most radical proponents of a language that was to be cleansed of all "educated" elements was Giannis Psycharis, who lived in France and gained fame through his work My Voyage (Το ταξίδι μου, 1888).
Not only did Psycharis propagate the exclusive use of the naturally grown colloquial language, but he actually opted for simplifying the morphology of Katharevousa forms prescription.