NEED HELP WITH BIBLICAL GREEK GRAMMAR TERMINOLOGY

I am in the middle of the "Accusative" video in the Learn To Use Greek and Hebrew video series recently released. I have no prior biblical greek language training or knowledge. Where can I go to understand what an "Infinitve Verb" is or what are substantitives (sp?) for NT biblical greek?

I hear these terms and I don't know what they mean and it is getting me bogged down trying to understand what is being taught in the video. Looking for suggestions, other video resources, books, websites.

Thanks,

Vince

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Rosie Perera

I just discovered a downloadable e-book ($8) that you might find useful: A Review of English Grammar for Students of Biblical Greek and Other Ancient Languages. It's written for the Christian classical homeschooling market, but says it's suitable for ages 12 to adult. I took a look at the table of contents and sample pages and it looks pretty good. I almost hesitate to refer you to it here because it's the kind of thing I think Logos ought to sell, and hopefully it will someday, so this would become a competing product. But for now it's not.

Rich DeRuiter

I am in the middle of the "Accusative" video in the Learn To Use Greek and Hebrew video series recently released. I have no prior biblical greek language training or knowledge. Where can I go to understand what an "Infinitve Verb" is or what are substantitives (sp?) for NT biblical greek?

I hear these terms and I don't know what they mean and it is getting me bogged down trying to understand what is being taught in the video. Looking for suggestions, other video resources, books, websites.

Thanks,

Vince

Did you try looking them up in a standard dictionary? I just looked up "accusative," "infinitive" and "substantive" in Merriam-Webster and found terse, but adequate explanations there.

You could also look up these terms in other resources you may have in Logos, particularly some of the grammars. But since I don't know what resources you have, I can't make any specific recommendations.

Brian Huddleston

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150471#Comment_150471

I just discovered a downloadable e-book ($8) that you might find useful: A Review of English Grammar for Students of Biblical Greek and Other Ancient Languages. It's written for the Christian classical homeschooling market, but says it's suitable for ages 12 to adult. I took a look at the table of contents and sample pages and it looks pretty good.

This looks like it would be ideal. I've had to look up several terms since it's been awhile since grammar class. The resources that I find helpful are the Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek which is part of the Essential IVP Reference Collection; Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament: Glossary, a part of the Lexham Syntactic NT; Greek New Testament Insert, a very affordable and concise aid; and Glossary of Morpho–Syntactic Database Terminology, which Dr. Heiser refers to in his videos.

Paul N

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150496#Comment_150496

Greek nouns have 3 characteristics:

1.) case
2.) number [singular and plural]
3.) gender

There are 5 cases:

- nominative - names or points out

- genitive - describes or defines

- dative - expresses personal interest or relationship

- vocative - used for direct address

- accusative - limits or qualifies the action of a verb and is most commonly used as the direct object. The direct object in a sentence receives the action of the verb.

Ex:) Blepomen gen. = "We see land"

Blepomen = "We see" qualifies the direct object "gen" or "land"

The noun "gen" is in the accusative form because it "is being seen"

Ex:) Exousi kardion; = "Do they have a heart?"

Exousi = "They have" qualifies the direct object "kardion" or "heart" (and the ; is greek for ? making it a question and thus adding "Do" at the beginning)

The noun "kardion" takes the accusative form because it is in question whether the accused person has one.

Infinitives

If you've taken spanish (or greek) you know every verb is set up separate endings for

Singular
I
You
He, she, it

Plural
We
Plural You (or as we say in Texas "Y'all")
They

The greek verb "luo" is the first person singular (I) meaning "I loosen"

Singular
I loosen = luo
you loosen = lueis
he, she, it loosens = luei

Plural
we loosen = luomen
y'all loosen = luete
they loosen = luousi

I set all this up to ask "What if you want to say 'I hope to loosen'?
'to loosen' is the infinitive because while still being a verb it is acting as a noun. Its a verbal noun!

Examples of infinitives:

I hope to work
They want to learn
I need to go
She wants to dance

Substantives have to do with adjectives. There are three types

Attributive - identifies or describes a noun by attributing some quality to it

Ex.) "a good deed" "good" attributes goodness to "deed"

Predicative - used with linking verbs ("to be" "to become") to assert something about the noun rather than simply identifying it.

Ex.) "The deed is good" "good" is the predicative adjective because it "is good" rather than just a "good deed"

Substantive - with substantives the noun is assumed but not physically there. The adjective does the work of the adjective AND the noun

Ex.) "The faithful braved the cold air to fight the fire" "The faithful" is speaking of those who fought the fire. This could be men, women, aliens, dogs, or caterpillars, but boy are they faithful! Usually you could add "ones" to fill in the noun. "The faithful [ones] braved the cold air to fight the fire"

I hope this helps and yes everything can and will get more robust as you learn more. This is all coming out of my first year of greek. [:P]

William

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150511#Comment_150511

Nice explanation Paul!!!!!

Thanks.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150511#Comment_150511

Substantives have to do with adjectives.

Are you certain? That would not be standard linguistic usage nor does it agree with the Greek grammar I have at hand. Substantives usually means nouns and words functioning as a noun - which can include adjectives, participles, demonstrative pronouns. But I do know that grammars are inconsistent in terminology so you may be right - I'm just saying double check.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150516#Comment_150516

Substantives usually means nouns and words functioning as a noun - which can include adjectives, participles, demonstrative pronouns. But I do know that grammars are inconsistent in terminology so you may be right - I'm just saying double check.

That's what I'd thought, too, and what the sample pages of A Review of English Grammar I pointed to above said. Substantive comes from Latin substantia, substance. So it would make sense that it's a noun or something acting in the role of a noun. I've just done a bit more review on the web. Substantives can include:

nouns - plain and simple old nouns you know and love (cat, boy)
pronouns - I, you, they, ...
gerunds (the "ing" form of the verb when it's functioning as a noun, e.g., "hiking is a fun activity") - I think that's what Martha is referring to by "participles"; there might be a subtle difference between gerunds and participles but I'm not sure
the infinitive (the plain vanilla form of the verb, with "to" in front of it) when used as the subject ("to err is human") or direct object ("I like to hike") of a verb (in general the subject is the person or thing doing the action of a verb and in English usually comes right before the verb in the simplest sentences; the direct object is the thing or person the action is being done to and in English usually comes right after the verb)
adjectival nouns (an adjective serving as a noun), e.g. "the land of the free and the home of the brave"
demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those - when used as nouns, not when used as adjectives/modifiers) - e.g., "this is my mother" but not "this woman is my mother"
groups of words that function as a noun ("those two people like to hike")

That's for English. I'm not sure if the exact same principles apply in Greek.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150524#Comment_150524

Here's another useful site:

http://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/grkindex.htm (click on "List of All Terms" to get good explanations of all the grammatical terms)

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150471#Comment_150471

Thanks Rosie, I'll check it out.

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150496#Comment_150496

I have the Scholar's edition.

No, I did not use a standard dictionary because I thought these terms would have a specific Koine Greek definition that could potentially be different than Engish grammar defintions. Is that an incorrect assumption?

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150504#Comment_150504

Thanks Brian, I'll check out these resources also. I have the Scholars edition to see if I have any of these.

Paul N

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150516#Comment_150516

I think this was one of those cases where two semesters of Greek isn't enough. After reading a little further yes Substantive is more of a position and not just dealing with adjectives.

There are substantive adjectives, pronouns, participles, etc.

A better way to say this is an adjective or participle that normally functions to describe a noun, when substantive, takes the steering wheel and kicks the noun out completely! [:D]

The concept still deals with adjectival purposes.

I know there's a Greek scholar laughing at all this!!! Please shed your light on substantive's for us!

BTW, we used "A Primer Of Biblical Greek" by N. Clayton Croy [published by Eerdmans] this year. I highly recommend it for group study or individual use.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150587#Comment_150587

I think this was one of those cases where two semesters of Greek isn't enough. After reading a little further yes Substantive is more of a position and not just dealing with adjectives.

There are substantive adjectives, pronouns, participles, etc.

A better way to say this is an adjective or participle that normally functions to describe a noun, when substantive, takes the steering wheel and kicks the noun out completely!

The concept still deals with adjectival purposes.

Your initial description of substantive was exactly right...for adjectives when they are substantives. Your example was very similar to mine. In my example ("the land of the free and the home of the brave"), the adjectives "free" and "brave" are serving in the place of nouns and are thus substantives. The noun ("people") is understood in both cases and is omitted. The phrase means "the land of the free people and the home of the brave people," but those adjectives are so flexible they can do double duty as nouns. [:)]

As you rightly pointed out in this second post, other things can be substantives besides adjectives (and they're only a small fraction of the things that can).

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150593#Comment_150593

Rosie and Paul, I really appreciate your help with this and replying so quickly and providing some links and resources.

Thanks again,and thanks for having integrity!

JimTowler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150593#Comment_150593

The noun ("people") is understood in both cases and is omitted. The phrase means "the land of the free people and the home of the brave people,"

If you put the extra words back in, it makes the Singing at the Ballgame more tricky than it already is.

I really really really would like Mounce's BBG V3 in Logos. I have paper V2, but I'm learning to not want to use books any more. They don't have scalable fonts for when I'm tired and like it bigger, and easy to read.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150595#Comment_150595

One more thing, Vince. Your email address is clearly visible in all your posts, where it can get picked up by spam-bots. You ought to change your display name to something other than your email name to protect yourself from that. Here's how: http://wiki.logos.com/Changing_Forum_Display_Name

Richard, if it's not too late, maybe you could edit out Vince's email address from your quote of his post, too. Thanks!

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150580#Comment_150580

No, I did not use a standard dictionary because I thought these terms would have a specific Koine Greek definition that could potentially be different than Engish grammar defintions. Is that an incorrect assumption?

For the most part grammar terms are descriptive and apply across languages. There are language specific nuances that a standard dictionary wouldn't catch. However, for most terms, a regular dictionary will give you a good definition to start with until you can find one specialized for Greek Grammar.

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150598#Comment_150598

Done!

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150623#Comment_150623

For the most part grammar terms are descriptive and apply across languages. There are language specific nuances that a standard dictionary wouldn't catch. However, for most terms, a regular dictionary will give you a good definition to start with until you can find one specialized for Greek Grammar.

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/ is an excellent source for definitions and examples. Items that have uses limited to specific languages are noted as such.

Rich DeRuiter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150598#Comment_150598

Richard, if it's not too late, maybe you could edit out Vince's email address from your quote of his post, too. Thanks!

Too late. [:(]

His email address is still his name though (as of 6:45pm PDT)

Rich DeRuiter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150580#Comment_150580

No, I did not use a standard dictionary because I thought these terms would have a specific Koine Greek definition that could potentially be different than Engish grammar defintions. Is that an incorrect assumption?

These terms are standard grammatical terms that function for any language, though terms like nominative, accusative, genitive and dative are specific to inflected languages (Greek, Latin, German, and other languages, both ancient and modern).

Some terms for verbs, though, are also standard, although Hebrew is unique in the languages I've studied (perhaps it's not completely unique but I don't know of other languages that have Pual, Niphil, Hitphael, etc.).

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150625#Comment_150625

Done!

It didn't work. You need to follow through with all the instructions in that link I gave you. It's non-intuitive and takes more steps than you'd think to get the change to stick.

Vince Romao

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/150776#Comment_150776

OK, it worked now, I checked on the "Edit" page after the update