Re: Article-Article-Noun-Noun

KHGrenier@aol.com
Fri, 13 Dec 1996 10:28:29 -0500

In a message dated 96-12-13 01:19:00 EST, Paul Zellmer writes:

<<
Just to stick my neck out a bit, I get the sense that the placing of the
modifier/limiter (the genitive) between the definite article and noun
head emphasizes the modifier just a tiny bit more than it would if the
order were THN DIKAISUNHN THN TOU QEOU, which, in English, would
translate the same way.
>>

Paul,

Thanks for your comments.

I probably should have been a bit more specific in my question. It was what
you said in this last paragraph (above) that I'm looking for. The
article-article-noun-noun construction occurs 29x in the NT, all of them with
a genitive article-noun in the middle.

It seems to me therefore, that this construction is beng used to highlight
the genitive is a particular way, but I'm not sure what way. I haven't jumped
into each verse and examined the use of the genitive yet, so that will
hopefully shed some light.

Prior to doing that, however, I was hoping someone would have information off
the top of their head to support/explain this construction more fully. So
far, none of the books I've read (Porter, BDF, Young, Wallace, Mounce,
Summers, Robertson, Dicharry & maybe one or two more) have made specific
comment to this construction (unless I just missed it). This indicates to me
either there is nothing significant about the construction at all, or there
may be something significant but no one is exactly sure of what the
significance is.

Kevin Grenier