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Topic · 2 parts
Adjective: all parts
The textbook teaches this topic in 2 parts across lessons 17.3, 29.2. Here they are together, in order.
SemanticsSemantics: Adjective (1 – Attributive and predicate adjectives)
To say God’s holy name is not the same as God’s name is holy. An adjective used attributively (i.e. God’s holy name) is not making a claim that God’s name is holy, but it is assuming that the description is true. On the other hand, saying God’s name is holy makes a claim about what God’s name is like. The technical terms for this in linguistics are presupposition and assertion. Attributive adjectives presuppose that the description is true, while predicative adjectives assert that the description is true.
| Attributive vsPredicative Syntax | |
|---|---|
| Before anarthrous noun | ἅγιον ὄνομα |
| After anarthrous noun | ὄνομα ἅγιον |
| Between noun and article | τὸ ὄνομα ἅγιον |
| With its own article | τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ἅγιον |
| Before definite noun | ἅγιοντὸ ὄνομα |
| After definite noun, no article | ὁ νόμοςἅγιος |
SemanticsSemantics: Adjective (2 – Intersective and subsective readings)
In Semantics A, we introduced the distinction between intersective and subsective readings of adjectives. The intersective reading of Rachel is a beautiful dancer is that Rachel is both a beautiful person and she is a dancer, but nothing is said about the quality of her dancing, and the subsective reading is that Rachel’s dancing is beautiful, but nothing is said about how she looks as a person. The hallmark of this interpretation is that the adjective may either modify a particular property of a person or the person as a whole. Since this ambiguity is syntactic in nature, it is found in Greek as well:
Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός (John 10:11)
I am the good shepherd
Is Jesus saying that he is a good person who happens to be a shepherd (the intersective reading) or that he is good at being a shepherd (the subsective reading)? In the context, Jesus contrasts himself with a hired person who would abandon the sheep when a wolf comes. This person is bad at being a shepherd, since he does not adequately take care of the sheep. Jesus, on the other hand, is good at being a shepherd, since he takes care of the sheep. The subsective reading is, then, the more likely reading here. Jesus is not calling himself a good person and a shepherd; he is calling himself a good shepherd, or one who is good at performing the task of shepherding.
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New Testament text shown on hover: Greek from the SBLGNT, © 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, CC BY 4.0; English from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain).