Morphology of διάβολος

I was surprised to discover that the Logos morphology tags διάβολος as an adjective every time it appears in the New Testament. Although there are a few instances where διάβολος is an adjective meaning slanderous, in the vast majority of instances it is a noun - ὁ διάβολος, meaning the slanderer / adversary / devil. I notice that the Gramcord morphology accurately makes this distinction.

Is this a mistake in the Logos morphology, or (more likely) am I misunderstanding something about either the Greek or the Logos morphology?

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Comments

Mark Barnes

The Friberg and Robinson's Morphologies follow the Logos morphology on this point. Gramcord morphology on the other hand, treats διάβολος as a noun in almost every case.

As I understand it, διάβολος is an adjective, even though it's used as a noun, which leaves an interpretative decision as to how it should be classed.

Bob Schaefer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/192667#Comment_192667

Thanks for the speedy reply, Mark. You're a real asset to the Logos user community. [:D]

I did some more digging after reading your reply, and I see that you're right - there does seem to be disagreement regarding whether to treat διάβολος as a noun, or as a substantive adjective. There isn't much agreement among the lexicons as to which it is. To me, the usage pattern argues for treating the word as a noun in most cases, although I now appreciate the grammatical argument for considering it an adjective.

I guess perhaps this illustrates the distinction between the morphological tagging and syntactical tagging, then: although διάβολος remains an adjective, it most often is found serving as a subject or an object, rather than as a modifier. Is that a fair assessment?

Ah, Greek "boot camp" in sem was way too long ago! I need a serious refresher, I'm afraid.