Articles and Adjectives and Substantives: Oh, My!

Keeping the New Testament Greek, attributive adjective “position” classifications straight in one’s head can be challenging, but here is a short summary (see Porter 117):

1. Article-adjective-substantive (e.g., ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος),
2. Article-substantive-article-adjective (e.g., ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθὸς),
3. Substantive-article-adjective (e.g., ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθὸς),
4. Adjective-substantive or substantive-adjective (e.g., ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος or ἄνθρωπος ἀγαθὸς).

In contrast to these four basic patterns, the potentially legitimate structure article-adjective-article-substantive (e.g., ὁ ἀγαθὸς ὁ ἄνθρωπος) is not used (Mounce §9.12).

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