--- In [log in to unmask], Tim Smith <tim.langsmith@W...> wrote:
At 12:35 PM 12/4/2004 -0500, Sally Caves wrote:

>This is most interesting.   I'm also interested in what looks like a
>doubling of the definite article in Mt 12:32  tou pneumatos tou
>hagiou?  The spirit the holy?  It I'm right, that's quite some
>definition!  Is this common in Greek?

>>As it happens, this is something I've been wondering about lately.
>>I seem to remember reading somewhere, years ago, that in Greek,
>>when you have a noun with a definite article and an adjective, it
>>works something like this:

>>If the adjective is attributive (modifying the noun), the unmarked
>>order is article - adjective - noun (_to hagion pneuma_, to put the
>>above example in the nominative).  The adjective-noun order can be
>>reversed, to put extra (contrastive?) emphasis on the adjective
>>("the HOLY spirit", as opposed to some other spirit), but if so,
>>the adjective gets its own article (_to pneuma to hagion_).  If the
>>adjective appears to the right of the noun without its own article
>>(_to pneuma hagion_), it's understood as predicative rather than
>>attributive ("the spirit is holy"); likewise if the adjective goes
>>before the article-noun pair (_hagion to pneuma_, "holy is the
>>spirit" or something like that).

>>This struck me as a really nifty and elegant arrangement.  But is it
>>correct?  I can't remember where I read it, and I haven't found any
>>reference to this anywhere else.  I'm starting to wonder if I
>>dreamed it, or just made it up in a moment of conlanging revery and
>>then somehow got it confused with Greek.  Ray, or any other Greek
>>scholars out there, can you confirm or deny that Greek actually
>>works this way?  And if it does, is it all periods of Greek (and if
>>not, which one(s))?

- Tim

For what its' worth:

Goodwin and Gluck, "Greek Grammar," p. 208-9: "The noun with the
article may be followed by the adjective with the article repeated.
The first article is sometimes omitted.  In these cases the noun has
greater emphasis than [when the adjective stands between the article
and the noun].

"o anhr o sofos, sometimes anhr o sofos _the wise man_ ( but _not_ o
anhr sofos)."

p. 210: "When an adjective either precedes the article, or follows
directly a noun which has an article, it is always a predicate
adjective....

"o anhr sofos or sofos o anhr (sc. estin) _the man is wise_, or _wise
is the man_."