Notes On Koine Greek: Part 31

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1. The 2nd of 3 Koine Greek Adjectival Uses: While in the previous

installation of these “Notes” we looked at the Attributive use of the adjective,
here, we shall look at the Substantival use.
2. Substantive Use of the Adjective: To say that an adjective is being used
substantively is simply to say this: Since the terms “noun” and “substantive” are
synonymous, when an adjective is functioning substantively, it is functioning like
a noun would. Here’s an example of an adjective acting substantively in English,
followed by a couple of Greek examples:

The house of the righteous.

Here, the phrase “the righteous” is functioning substantively. In other words, we typically think of
“righteous” as an adjective…because it is! Here, though, it is an adjective being used like a noun. One way
to think about the substantive use is to ask: Is someone or something being implied that hasn’t been
explicitly mentioned? Here, the answer would be “Yes”. What is being implied is people, as in “The house
of the righteous people.” Greek works the same way!

evxa,rate to.n ponhro,n

Here, the adjectival phrase “to.n ponhro,n” (evil) is functioning substantively or, as a noun would. In Greek,
we must pay close attention to the Case-Number Suffix Morpheme as well as to the Gender of the term. So,
if we were to parse this, we would have: Nominative, 1st Person, Masculine. This means that “to.n ponhro,n”
should be rendered “the evil man”. If we were to ignore the parsing information, we render the sentence:
“Remove the wicked”. However, by acknowledging the substantive nature of the sentence, we realize that it
should be translated: “Remove (or expel) the wicked man.” Here, the word “man” (a;nqrwpon) is implied by
the Sg. / Masc. nature of the article and word.

As another example, we take the short phrase:

o` pisto.j.
Parsing this, we know that it is an adjective that is Nominative, Singular and Masculine. Translating this
wooden-literally, we would get: “The faithful”. However, recognizing its substantive nature in light of the
parsing details, we actually translate it as: “The faithful man.” Again, the word “man” (a;nqrwpoj) is
missing but the word itself suggests that it is to be supplied (e.g. o` pisto.j a;nqrwpoj.) In short: You don’t
have to include the noun here because the adjective already contains it in case, number and gender.