[B-Greek] The emphasis of the first attributive position

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Aug 5 02:50:07 EDT 2007


Hi Brian,

Some comments below:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Abasciano" <bvabasciano at gmail.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 4:15 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] The emphasis of the first attributive position


> The grammars seem to agree that that the first attributive position 
> (article-adjective-noun) places greater emphasis on the adjective than on 
> the substantive (so e.g., Robertson, 776; Wallace, 306; Smyth, section 
> 1157; BDF, section 270).

Iver: Although I haven't studied all the references you give, the statement 
is an oversimplification, at least for NT Greek. I only have BDF and they 
fail to take into account the style of different authors. According to my 
own little research over the years, if there is no article, then the order 
adjective-noun may indicate greater relative emphasis on the adjective than 
the noun as compared to the order noun-adjective. But it depends on the 
author and also how many other modifiers are part of the noun phrase.
If there is an article, Matthew almost always uses the order 
article-adjective-noun and Peter always does. Mark and John (including Rev.) 
almost always use the order article-noun-article-adjective. Luke is 
fifty-fifty. This means that the above statement does not apply to Matthew 
and Peter and not necessarily to Luke. It is possible that there is Hebrew 
interference for these authors, but I don't know. It is a topic that would 
need a lot of empirical research both inside and outside of the GNT. I don't 
know if anyone has done such thorough research.

The different style of authors can be illustrated by parallel passages as 
for example:

Matt 13:23 hO DE EPI THN KALHN GHN SPAREIS
Mark 4:20  hOI     EPI THN GHN THN KALHN SPARENTES
Luke 8:15  TO DE EN THi KALHi GHN

>
> Brian:
> To give some examples to try and flesh out what I am saying, when Matt 4:5 
> speaks of Satan taking Jesus into the holy city, the holy character of the 
> city receives emphasis over the city-ness (so to speak) character of it, 
> or maybe better, over the fact that it was a city.

Iver: Not really, since Matthew ordinarily places the adjective before the 
noun. "The Holy City" is a unit equivalent to Jerusalem and there is no 
particular emphasis on its holiness.
This phrase is used twice in Matthew (4:5 and 27:53) and both times it is 
EIS THN hAGIAN POLIN.
The phrase is used 4 times in Rev, and always with the order hH POLIS hH 
hAGIA (11:2, 21:2,10, 22:19).
Since Matthew ordinarily places the adjective before the noun in an NP with 
article and since John ordinarily places it after the noun, there is no 
particular emphasis intended by the placements here. The order is not marked 
(in technical language).

Brian: Or in Luke 6:45, Jesus speaks of the good man bringing out good from 
the good treasures of his heart. Obviously, the important thing about the 
man here is that he is good. That goodness is highlighted as the 
distinguishing characteristic of the man in question over the fact of his 
"male-ness". But it is still the man that is primarily spoken of.

Iver:
Luke 6:45 doesn't talk about a man, so male-ness is both irrelevant and 
misleading. The text says hO AGAQOS ANQRWPOS, i.e. the good person. Luke 
probably intends to place focus on the goodness since it is contrasted to 
another person who is evil. A conclusion must be based on not just the word 
order, but the context as well.

Iver Larsen 




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