Lesson 11 — Alpha With Angela (Video #3)

Today we will enjoy the third video in the Alpha with Angela series.  In this 12 ½ minute lesson, she deals with neuter nouns, adjective, and articles.  We have already introduced some of these.  Angela is going to help us fix them in our brains.

You may be wondering about the greeting that Angela uses at the beginning of each video:  χαίρετε.  It is the 2nd person imperative plural form of χαίρω, to be happy.

An imperative/command to "be happy" (as in "Don't worry; be happy") seems to us to be a little bit odd as an introduction to a video.  However, the imperative form of χαίρω was used idiomatically as a way of saying "hello" or "goodbye" when meeting or parting.

Angela is using a plural imperative because she is greeting many of us at once.  If you are meeting one person rather than a group, you would use the 2nd person singular:  χαῖρε.

 

Click here to go to the video now.



A Head's-Up on the Video

Here are some Greek words you will hear in the video: 

I didn't recognize the word for "inanimate object". 

I slightly wonder if the NT even HAS a word in it for "inanimate object".  I don't doubt that such a word exists in non-biblical Greek.  Philosophers were debating the nature of reality, and would surely distinguish between living and non-living things.  But this is not really a big deal in the NT.

In any case, Angela assures us that she will go over all these words again when she starts to teach reading skills.

 

Continue Diagramming Acts 1:18

We finished off last lesson by diagramming the first two clauses of the verse.  We have a third clause, also introduced by the conjunction καὶ.

This clause has its own subject and predicate.  The first thing to do is to identify the main verb (i.e. a verb that is not a participle; participles always have some sort of subordinate role).

ἐξεχύθη is an aorist passive — were spilled out.  Definitely not a participle.  Let's diagram it.

To find the subject of the verb "was spilled out", we ask "Who or what was spilled out?"  We look for a nominative case noun that can be the subject of the verb, and the answer is, "intestines".  So that is the subject of the sentence.  Let's diagram it as well.

As we look at the other words in that clause, we see an adjective πάντα all.  It is in the nominative case, the same as the subject.  It modifies "intestines".  That is to say, "How much intestines spilled out?", and we get the adjective πάντα all of them.

Then we have a pronoun in the genitive that, virtually by definition, has got to be modifying the subject, "intestines", the nominative noun that is the subject of the sentence.

Both of these words, then, modify the noun "intestines".

There we go.  We have analyzed all of verse 18, and in the process have sorted out some of the methodology of sentence diagramming.

If you have found this helpful, I can walk us through diagramming another verse.  If it is "just another thing" and not very helpful, then we can give it up as a separate exercise.  We MUST understand how Greek sentences are built.  But I can vary the amount of emphasis I put on it.

Please click on one of these two buttons, to give me some guidance on how to include this in the curriculum going forward.