Double articles

[mmorris]

I have question about double articles, such as what is found in Mark 3:18. It contains καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου.

Why are there two articles instead of one? Wouldn’t this be the same as if Mark wrote καὶ Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου?

[Jonathan Robie]

I have question about double articles, such as what is found in Mark 3:18. It contains καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου.

Why are there two articles instead of one? Wouldn’t this be the same as if Mark wrote καὶ Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου?

This is an extremely common usage. Which Ἰάκωβος? The one that is Ἁλφαῖος's. Here's a list:

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearc ... ion=SBLGNT

And what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose:

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearc ... ion=SBLGNT

[mmorris]

Jonathan, thank you for the reply.

I realize it is common. I guess to phrase it differently, what is the difference between:

Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου

Vs.

Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου

Thanks!

[Jonathan Robie]

I realize it is common. I guess to phrase it differently, what is the difference between:

Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου

Vs.

Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου

I'm going to have to look at some things before I can say with any confidence whether this is true ... hence the handwaving earlier ... but ....

My guess is that ὁ τοῦ Ἁλφαίου functions like a last name here, and that this is the form that would be used. But I also suspect this form is used in most other places where one person is identified in relationship to someone else, e.g. οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός;

If someone is identified with respect to a place, I think the second form is more common, e.g. ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου περιπάτει.

Let's wait a day or two and see what others say. There may be a great discourse explanation for this. And my intuition for usage may not hold up to scrutiny. Also, I may have time to look at this more carefully.

[serunge]

I have question about double articles, such as what is found in Mark 3:18. It contains καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου.

Why are there two articles instead of one? Wouldn’t this be the same as if Mark wrote καὶ Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου?

Howdy,

Greek articles are an efficient way for writers to implicate something without needing to add a lot of detail. The key thing to note from your example is the difference in the grammatical case between the two. In καὶ Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου the genitive modifier is part of one information package, what is typically called the second attributive position. The other option, καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου is what is typically called the third attributive, signaled by an extra article that agrees with the main noun. Based on the expectation that an article signals the beginning of a noun phrase, the unneeded article essentially creates the impression that this is a separate but related chunk of information. We could do the same thing in English (though it would sound clunky), "Jacob, the [xxx] of Alphaeus" where the inferred xxx likely is "son". I have explained the difference between second and third attributive positions to students as the difference between using one grocery bag for everything versus splitting out the can goods from the fruit or freezer/refrigerator things. The point is there is generally a meaningful reason for creating the second package, but more on the stylistic end of the spectrum than a change in the semantics.

I wrote this up in an article published in a volume edited by Daniel King and published by SIL, available here: https://www.academia.edu/82372774/Towar ... erspective

[Randall Tan]

(Note: I didn't see Steve's response above when I started writing my response below. I agree with what he wrote above as well.) There's a discussion of this genitive of relationship in robertsongram XI.VIII(f)7 & Blass, Debrunner, Funk §162. It is used to identify a person by his father, a mother by his son, a wife by her husband, etc., with the substantive son, mother, wife, etc. omitted because the context makes it clear. BDF reports that this addition of a second article in the genitive when the substantive son is omitted is contrary to Classical usage. Cases with the omission of both articles do occur, e.g., τὸν Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος (John 6:71), Σίμων Ἰωάνου (John 21:15). The substantive being expressed & the genitive article omitted also occurs, e.g., Ἰωάνην τὸν Ζαχαρίου υἱόν (Luke 3:2). I don't think the pattern Ἰάκωβον τοῦ Ἁλφαίου (proper noun modified by a genitive article & another proper noun that is in a genitive of relationship function to the first proper noun) is used to relate proper names that refer to persons to another proper name that refers to another person. However, you do have proper names that refer to places being related in this pattern, e.g., Ναζαρὲθ τῆς Γαλιλαίας Matt 21:11, Mark 1:9 (partitive genitive).

[Jonathan Robie]

Very much appreciated Steve and Randall's helpful responses.

I went looking for patterns involving word groups where the first word is τοῦ and the second is a personal name. For macula-greek, this XPath finds them:

//wg[w[.="τοῦ"] and w[@domain="093001"]]

When I see two articles in a row, both refer to people, both refer to people by name:

Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Λευεὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἀλφαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Δαυεὶδ τὸν τοῦ Ἰεσσαί
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ

These all seem to involve names of individuals, identifying them by their father or spouse etc.

This one is the exception that I saw:

ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου

And that's an interesting one, involving Baathsheba, I think there may be some euphemism going on here, avoiding saying her name outright.

This pattern is not used with roles like brother or mother or son:

τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Ἰησοῦν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ
ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ

Or with God:

ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ

Or with other things that belong to individuals:

ἡ εὐλογία τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ
τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ
ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ Ἰεσσαί

[serunge]

When I see two articles in a row, both refer to people, both refer to people by name:

Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Λευεὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἀλφαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Δαυεὶδ τὸν τοῦ Ἰεσσαί
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ

These all seem to involve names of individuals, identifying them by their father or spouse etc.

This one is the exception that I saw:

ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου

And that's an interesting one, involving Baathsheba, I think there may be some euphemism going on here, avoiding saying her name outright.

This pattern is not used with roles like brother or mother or son:

τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Ἰησοῦν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ
ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ

Or with God:

ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ

Or with other things that belong to individuals:

ἡ εὐλογία τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ
τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ
ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ Ἰεσσαί

If we loop back to Randall's observations from the grammars about the elision of nouns that are highly accessible from the context, this would be the prototype from which the other less-specified uses are derived, the pattern that they depend upon to still achieve comprehension despite lacking the same degree of semantic detail. Jonathan's data is very helpful in this regard, but it would take flipping the labels on the patterns.

So I'd recommend that we begin with these as the expected norm or prototype from which the other patterns stem:
τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Ἰησοῦν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ
ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ

Jonathan noted that the elison is not observed with God or with other things that belong to individuals, likely because the noun preceding the genitive modifier is not accessible enough from the context, it is too necessary to achieve clear communication to be able to drop it:

ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ

ἡ εὐλογία τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ
τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ
ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ Ἰεσσαί

The only real exception to this might be in poetry between cola or something, but again it would be where the noun is highly accessible without undue risk of ambiguity.

Shifting now to the contexts with elision, as Jonathan notes, they generally are proper names which suggests that this pattern is largely restricted to kinship contexts, hence highly established and predictable nouns are elided.

Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Λευεὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἀλφαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου
Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Ἰακώβου
Δαυεὶδ τὸν τοῦ Ἰεσσαί
Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ

The most interesting token to me is the anomaly, ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου. I'd agree that there is a desire to avoid using Bathsheba's name; I'll posit it's motivated by the desire to recharacterize her as someone else's wife to remind us of David's adultery and hence God's grace in including Bathsheba in the Messiah's lineage just as with Rahab earlier in the genealogy.

A systemic-functional approach to patterns like this can have tremendous explanatory value to help us move beyond categorization to understanding the function of the one group within the larger system. This was a great question, and chiming in with data and grammarians reminded me again of how important and fun this forum can be for collective learning. The other posts have helped clarify and refine my own thinking, and hopefully they have helped answer the initial question.

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

I'm not sure I understand what serunge or others are saying. To me it looks like "Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου" etc. point to an individual person by name, but because it may not be enough to identify them, clarification is added: "Jakobos, namely the one of the Zebedaios". This is not an alternative explanation, I hope, but a different kind of viewpoint. It wouldn't of course be used for example for God of Israel or mother of someone: "God, namely the one of Israel" or "mother, namely the mother of..."

[Jonathan Robie]

I'm not sure I understand what serunge or others are saying. To me it looks like "Ἰάκωβος ὁ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου" etc. point to an individual person by name, but because it may not be enough to identify them, clarification is added: "Jakobos, namely the one of the Zebedaios". This is not an alternative explanation, I hope, but a different kind of viewpoint. It wouldn't of course be used for example for God of Israel or mother of someone: "God, namely the one of Israel" or "mother, namely the mother of..."

Yes, I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. And saying it in plain English is helpful, thanks.