Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a
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5: Adjectives, The Verb “to Be” and Nouns of the 1st Declension<br />
5: Adjectives, The Verb “to Be” and<br />
Nouns of the 1st Declension<br />
59<br />
Not Just Any Apostle!<br />
In our own speech we often describe the things we’re talking about: the holy apostle,<br />
or the good apostle, or the rst apostle, or the last apostle, or the other apostle, or the<br />
dead apostle, and so on.<br />
Words that do the work of modifying or describing nouns are known as Adjectives,<br />
another of the ten parts of speech (types of words) we are encountering in <strong>Greek</strong>.<br />
[We’ve already learned of verbs, nouns, articles, conjunctions, and adverbs.] In<br />
Mounce’s Interlinear code, an adjective is signaled by an “a.”<br />
The Agreement of Adjectives with Their<br />
Governing Nouns<br />
Since an adjective modies (and so serves) a noun, it only seems reasonable that an<br />
adjective must agree with the noun it is modifying in case, number, and in gender.<br />
In other words, all three components of parsing information (case, number, gender)<br />
must match. Carefully note that this does not mean that the endings of an adjective<br />
must match its partnered noun in spelling; only that they match in information!<br />
Because an adjective (like the article) must be able to agree with a noun of any gender<br />
as it is found in any case or number, the adjective must have endings enabling it to<br />
cover the full range of cases, numbers and genders. Below is the adjective <br />
( good, noble, ne, excellent) shown in its full range of possible<br />
forms.<br />
Singular<br />
Plural<br />
Masculine Feminine Neuter<br />
nominative <br />
genitive <br />
dative <br />
accusative <br />
nominative <br />
genitive <br />
dative <br />
accusative <br />
The Positions of the Adjective<br />
We have made it clear that <strong>Greek</strong> word order is highly exible, open to many<br />
variations without essential change in sentence meaning. But <strong>Greek</strong> is not totally<br />
indifferent to word order. In the matter of how an adjective stands in relation to the<br />
noun it modies, <strong>Greek</strong> has specic preferences. Consider the following sentence<br />
involving articular nouns without adjectives:<br />
<br />
(The angel is giving the book to the children.)