New Testament Greek
10. Lesson 6: Characteristics of Greek Adjective and Article
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Date: 071111G Duration: 1:35:42
1:1 VEn avrch/| h=n o` lo,goj( kai. o` lo,goj h=n pro.j to.n Qeo,n( kai. Qeo.j h=n o` lo,gojÅ 2 ou-toj h=n evn avrch/| pro.j to.n Qeo,nÅ 3 pa,nta diV auvtou/ evge,neto( kai. cwri.j auvtou/ evge,neto ouvde. e[n( o] ge,gonenÅ 4 evn auvtw/| zwh. h=n( kai. h` zwh. h=n to. fw/j tw/n avnqrw,pwn( 5 kai. to. fw/j evn th/| skoti,a| fai,nei( kai. h` skoti,a auvto. ouv kate,labenÅ
We will go through the basic exercises first, then we will get into the characteristics of the adjective and article in Greek.
All right. We now come into the first area in our studies where we’ll find that Greek is quite different from English.
I know some of you have studied Spanish, but even in Spanish the adjective and article are not used as they are in the Greek.
The only thing I went over last week was the fact that the adjective and article must match the case, number, and gender of nouns they are used to modify (I hope I didn’t rush that too quickly).
That already goes beyond the English. Of course, there is gender in Spanish, and the article and adjective do agree with the gender and number of the noun in Spanish: el, los, la, las, not to forget the indefinite articles (which Greek does not have): un, una.
But notice: Spanish only has two genders: masculine and feminine. There is no neuter in Spanish.
We also know that in Spanish an adjective often is placed after the noun it modifies, where in English the adjective comes first.
Otherwise, Spanish and English are fairly similar, in that adjectives and articles are used to modify nouns. You just don’t find them used by themselves, without a noun or nouns to modify.
Greek uses adjectives that way. That was this week’s exercises.
Just very simple associations between the adjective, the article, and the noun, to match the case, number and gender. But just easy article, adjective, and noun associations.
But, now we need to learn several more things about the adjectives and articles as they are used in the Greek.
Last week, remember we were dealing with “accidence.” Today it’s syntax: how words are used in grammatical constructions.
Consider the simple phrase, “the good word.” From what we went over last week, you would know that is “oJ ajgaqoV" lovgo".”
But, I didn’t turn you loose on the exercises in the book, because, I had not had time to tell you the full story.
I was careful not to violate what we are going to learn today; but as far as you were concerned, you were just substituting one word for another word: the for the, an adjective for an adjective, and a noun for a noun. If there was no the, you would use a or an.
So, back to the phrase, “the good word”: the adjective is giving an attribute to the noun: that is what is called the attributive use of the adjective in Greek, and it is what we commonly do with an adjective in the English.
Now, if I am going to keep this simple, I have to first deal only with cases where the definite article is used.
When no definite article is used... well, I’ll come to that later.
In working with Greek, there are two main characteristics to bear in mind concerning the attributive use of the adjective.
1. The definite article is located immediately before the adjective.
2. In translation, no verb is used. It’s just a phrase, such as we just suggested, “the good word,” as part of a sentence.
Now, that isn’t a lot different from the English. But, here is where it gets weird: in Greek, for, “the good word,” you also might say, oJ lovgo" oJ ajgaqov". In other words, the adjective may come after the noun it modifies; but, when it does, the article still has to be placed right in front of the adjective. This necessitates using the article twice, but that is just the way it is in the Greek.
§71/70, about ⅔ of the way through the paragraph, it says that the cumbersome form is much more common in Greek; but, when we translate it, we only need to write, “the good word.”
So, unless you read and thoroughly understood what this is saying, you would have had a hard time knowing how to do exercises, at the point we stopped last week.
That is why I gave you those simple exercises, and I did not expect anyone to use the repeated article form to translate the English to Greek, and I did not use it in the Greek to English exercises.
So, attributive use is just using an adjective and a noun in a phrase as part of a sentence: the adjective gives the noun an attribute.
In Greek, it’s either, “oJ ajgaqoV" lovgo"” or “oJ lovgo" oJ ajgaqov".”
Now we come to the second major use of the adjective.
In English, we have descriptive sentences where a noun is followed by a form of the “be” verb, followed by an adjective.
Instead of saying, “the good word,” as part of a sentence, we might say, “The word is good,” which is a complete sentence. And, in this usage, we call the adjective a “predicate adjective.”
In English it requires the use of a form of the “be” verb, because in English, a complete sentence always requires a verb.
In Greek, the same use of the adjective does not require a verb.
But it is still called the predicative use of the adjective.
The heading in our grammar books is a misnomer: “Attributive and Predicate Positions of Adjectives.” It should have said “use.”
It isn’t the position of the adjective that matters, but the position of the article that determines the usage.
The two main characteristics to bear in mine for the predicative use of the adjective are these:
1. There is not an article preceding the predicate adjective.
It’s either, “oJ lovgo" ajgaqov"” or “ajgaqoV" oJ lovgo".”
2. A predicate adjective construction is translated as a sentence in English, with a form of the “be” verb, just as in English, though there is no verb expressed in the Greek.
The different uses and proper forms are given in a table, §73/72.
Let me read §74/73 to you, and please listen carefully.
[ Read §74/73 ]
Now, I said I would have to come later to cases where the article is not used. That is §75/74.
I did not expect anyone to know they might have translated any of the exercises with a predicative form.
But, when we do the exercises this week, we will need to know and apply these principles, Greek to English and English to Greek.
Now, there is one more use of the adjective. The way the book has it divided up is based on the two uses involving the position of the article in relation to the adjective, and a third use based on the purpose for which it is used.
Remember, a substantive has one of several uses: a noun names; a pronoun identifies person, case, and number, and, for the third person, also the gender; a definite article only identifies person, case, and number; an adjective describes.
But, because every adjective has all three genders in the Greek, an adjective can be used almost as if it were a multi-gender noun.
The adjective, “good,” in the masculine, can be used as the subject of a verb, and would then mean, “good man.” In the feminine, it would mean “good woman.” In the neuter, “good thing.” Or it can simply mean “good,” in an abstract sense, in which case you would determine that based on the context. [ Read book! ]
All these uses will be included in the exercises this week.
As we will see in a couple weeks, the article alone can be a subject.
But, we will need to move on next week to prepositions.
First Three Exercises, Greek to English
1. ajgaqhV hJ ejkklhsiva kaiV hJ basileiva kakhv.
ajgaqhV: prd nsf is good / hJ ejkklhsiva: sbj art.n nsf the church / kaiV: cnj and / hJ basileiva: sbj art.n nsf the kingdom / kakhv: prd nsf is bad / The church is good and the kingdom is bad.
2. hJ kakhV kardiva tw'n ajnqrwvpwn ginwvskei qavnaton.
hJ kakhV kardiva: sbj art.att.n nsf the bad heart / tw'n ajnqrwvpwn: psv art.n gpm of the men / ginwvskei: v 3spai knows / qavnaton: d-o asm death / The bad heart of (the) men knows death.
3. oiJ ajpovstoloi blevpousi touV" mikrouV" oi[kou" kaiV taV" kakaV" oJdouv".
oiJ ajpovstoloi: sbj art.n npm the apostles / blevpousi: v 3ppai see / touV" mikrouV" oi[kou": d-o art.att.n apm the small houses / kaiV: cnj and / taV" kakaV" oJdouv": d-o art.att.n apf the bad roads / The apostles see the small houses and the bad roads.
First Three Exercises, English to Greek
1. To the first church the Lord writes the first parable.
to the first church: i-o art.att.n dsf — th/' prwvth/ ejkklhsiva/ / the Lord: sbj art.n nsm — oJ kuvrio" / writes: v 3spai gravfei / the first parable: d-o art.att.n asf — thVn prwvthn parabolhvn / th/' prwvth/ ejkklhsiva/ oJ kuvrio" gravfei thVn prwvthn parabolhvn.
2. The good woman sees the ways of the desert.
the good woman: sbj art.sub nsf — hJ ajgaqhV / sees: v 3spai blevpei / the ways: d-o art.n apf — taV" oJdouV" / of the desert: psv art.n gsf — thV" ejrhvmou / hJ ajgaqhV blevpei taV" oJdouV" thV" ejrhvmou.
3. The good things are first and the bad things last.
the good things: sbj art.sub npn — taV kalaV or taV ajgaqaV / are first: prd npn — prw'ta / and: cnj kaiV / the bad things: sbj art.sub npn — taV kakaV / (are) last: prd npn — e[scata / taV kalaV prw'ta kaiV taV kakaV e[scata.