Adjective – πολύς/μέγας

ObjectivesLearning objectives

• The syntax and semantics of the adjective ἅπας and the conjunction μήτε
• The morphology of the adjectives μέγας and πολύς
• The semantics of open scale adjectives

VocabularyVocabulary

Noteἅπας

The word ἅπας ‘whole’ is similar to πᾶς ‘all,’ but in the NT, it seems to be restricted to modifying collective, plural, and abstract nouns:

Syntactically, it can be used with a noun and article, as we see above, or it can be used similarly to a pronoun where it does not modify anything:

Noteμήτε

The negative conjunction μήτε is used like οὔτε except that it is normally found following μή rather than οὐ, or more generally, it is used in constructions where we would expect μή (29.4.3), such as in a participle clause:

MorphologyMorphology: Adjective - πολύς, μέγας

• The adjectives μέγας and πολύς use 3rd declension endings for the nom and acc sg in masc and neut, and 2nd declension endings for all other forms
• In the masc, the nom sg ending is -ς and the acc sg ending is -ν (like πόλις), while in the neut the ending is nothing, as usual.
• For μέγας the regular stem is μέγαλ-, but the 3rd declension endings cause the final λ to drop out, e.g. μέγαλ + -ς → μέγας (masc nom); μέγαλ + -ν → μέγαν (masc acc); μέγαλ → μέγα (neut nom/acc)
• In the fem and all forms besides the masc/neut nom/acc, the 1st and 2nd declension endings are used, e.g. μεγάλου (masc/neut gen), μεγάλη (fem nom), μεγάλης (fem gen)
• Similarly, the typical stem for πολύς is πολλ-, but it becomes πολύ- whenever 3rd declension endings are used, e.g. πολύς (masc nom sg), πολύν (masc acc sg), and πολύ (neut nom/acc sg) vs. πολλοῦ (masc/neut gen sg), πολλή (fem nom sg), πολλῆς (fem gen sg), etc.

SemanticsSemantics: Adjective – Regular (4 – Open scale)

Adjective – Regular: all 3 parts on one page →Also in Lesson 41.2, Lesson 42.1

An adjective like πολύς ‘many’ or ‘abundant’ refers to the quantity of something. When we talk about how much of something there is, we implicitly reference a scale of quantity (see Sem A for scales in adjectives):

This scalar adjective could be quantified with numerical values, such as how many coins make up the reward. The sense of πολύς meaning ‘abundant’ refers to something high on the scale of quantity, and the sense of μέγας meaning ‘large’ refers to something high on the scale of size. Both πολύς and μέγας refer to something high on a scale, but the types of scales that they can refer to differ.

Although a scale of quantity and a scale of size are distinct, they share an important property – they are both open scales (see Sem A). This means that these adjectives have no minimum or maximum value. There is, in theory, no limit to how big or abundant something can be. Because of this, the word ‘abundant’ is always interpreted relative to a set of individuals. What qualifies as a μισθός πολύς ‘abundant reward’ is probably much smaller for a peasant than a king because the king would expect more money. Because of this, the king’s comparison set, or the set of individuals that an open scale adjective is compared to, would probably differ from the peasant’s. Thus, open scale adjectives do not refer to a particular size or quantity, but they refer to an amount on a scale that is relative to other things on that scale.