Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a

4: The (Denite) Article
4: The (Denite) Article
In the last chapter we learned how to analyze and translate simple Greek sentences.
We learned how nouns play various roles, depending on their cases, as thy orbit
around the (grammatical) hub of the sentence: the verb.
But what awkward and articial sentences we’ve been working with! [“Oh Teacher,
angels are giving crowns of gold to children.”] We can’t fault any word we’ve
used in them. Each word is perfectly legitimate in its own right. But something
feels downright childish about them. Something is missing that would give these
sentences a more realistic feel. What is it?
It’s the little word the. Somehow we know that these sentences, if we met them in the
real world, would likely have several “the’s”:
Oh Teacher, the angels are giving the crowns of gold to the
children.
In English we call “the” the denite article, and it’s by far the most frequently used
word in English and in Greek. On average, one of every seven words in the GNT is
the article. So by getting our minds wrapped around the article, we’re taking a huge
step forward in learning NT Greek! But why might this be, and what sort of work
does this tiny word do?
The Logic and Use of the (Denite) Article
First, a warning. The Greek and the English denite articles often function in the
same way. So when we see a Greek article in the GNT, we will often end up using
an English denite article (the) to translate it. But the Greek article often functions
differently from the English denite article. The two are not simply interchangeable
in every instance! But since we are only getting started in Greek, we will go ahead
and translate the Greek article as the, and learn other subtleties later.
But what does the mean? In English as in Greek, the denite article very frequently
identies and distinguishes some particular individual (or group of individuals)
from others. For example, if I asked, “Did you park the car in the garage?” I am
signaling to you that I am curious about a particular car, not any car, and not just
cars in general; and that I have in mind a particular garage, not just any garage. If
I said, “Did you pick up the children?” I am signaling to you that I have particular
children in mind.
But now the explanation becomes more fascinating! How can the one little word
the identify a particular car, and then turn right around and identify a particular
garage, and then particular children? Certainly the English letters t-h-e contain no
information about color, size, shape, age, location (etc.) which would point me to this
car as opposed to that one, and to that garage as opposed to another! So how does
the work its magic?
As you might have guessed, the itself contains no information identifying the right
car or the right garage. But it does tell us that we listeners or readers should somehow
already know which car and which garage are in question. In other words, when
I ask, “Did you park the car in the garage?” you should begin saying to yourself,
“Somehow I should already know what car and what garage he is talking about.”
If it helps, think of the article as a wink of the eye telling us that we already have
resources for identifying just which item the speaker has in mind.
So, why did our manufactured sentences sound so awkward without any the’s?
Because real conversation and real writing moves forward, from sentence to sentence,
by adding only small bits of new information to a larger body of old information.
In other words, the rate at which new information is communicated is rather low.
Much of each new sentence we encounter appeals to old information already shared
between speaker and listener. Therefore most sentences will be peppered with
articles “winking” to us to identify items we already know about!
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