Explanation of Philosophical Under girding

A certain philosophy regarding issues of sufficient data base, semantic situation, unaffected vs. affected meaning, synchronic priority, and structural priority governs the approach of this study.¹ These topics along with issues of lexical elasticity and some problematic data are addressed below.

Summary of Treatment in Secondary Sources

The first step in the research involved examining several beginning, intermediate, and advanced grammars, as well as related works, for the purpose of collecting any past and current postulations on how to distinguish subject (S) from predicate nominative (PN) in constructions consisting of an anarthrous proper noun (N^P), an articular noun (AN), and the equative verb (V^e), εἰμιv.

Summary and Conclusion

In sum, the minimal discussion in grammars regarding the problematic nature of subject determination involving anarthrous proper nouns and articular nouns in Koine Greek equative clauses has now been replaced with an exhaustive cataloguing of this target cluster. However, given the tight parameters assigned to this investigation, more work remains to be done in the core case form, the nominative case. For example, the behavior of verbal ellipses with proper names and articular nouns is of particular interest.

The First Letter of John

Structurally speaking, only one New Testament writer employed the target cluster as an SPN construction. John used it six times (John 8:39; 20:31; 1 John 2:22; 4:15; 5:1, 5). All six times it is in the present tense, five times as ST3 and once as ST2. I believe that all six of these are clear examples of the normal word order pattern. The passages from the epistle are examined first. The goal is to show that the first nominative in these is the subject, meaning that the second nominative is lesser known than the first.

Explanation of Search Method

Searching the primary sources for combinations of an anarthrous proper noun in an SPN construction can be done in a couple of ways. One is simply to create a list of all known proper nouns and search the literature with it.

Chronological Review of Previous Research

Henry Moeller and Arnold Kramer first address the broader problem of distinguishing the semantic roles between two consecutive substantives.¹ They write, “In Koine Greek the function of a substantive is not always unanimously signaled by its inflectional form. Thus it occurs that within a given phrase-structure, two words may be similar in their inflectional terminations, yet be quite different in function.

Introduction

Problem Statement

When two Greek substantives appear with an equative verb in a sentence or clause, distinguishing the subject (S) from the predicate nominative (PN) can stump the best of exegetes.¹ Centered on the core principle that the subject is the known entity, a helpful system already exists for answering this question in the majority of New Testament (NT) constructions which consist of two nominatives.² However, in the case of a proper