Participle – Luo medio-passive

ObjectivesLearning objectives

The morphology of the Luo medio-passive participle
The syntax and semantics of the nominative participle used verbally

VocabularyVocabulary

Greek	Gloss	Part of speech	Paradigm
ἤδη	already	adverb
ἄρχομαι ποιεῖν	(I) begin to do	verb	C.a.ζ
ἁμαρτωλός, -όν	sinful	adjective	A.a.γ
παραγίνομαι εἰς τόπον	(I) arrive at a place	verb	C.a.α
χαρίζομαί σοι τήν	(I) give you (dat) the (acc)	verb	C.a.θ
ᾔδειν ὅτι	(I) knew that	verb	C.a.α

Table 177 (continued)

Noteᾔδειν

The verb ᾔδειν ὅτι ‘(I) knew that’ is the past tense form of οἶδα ‘(I) know’. Since οἶδα is a Leluka form, which is a present perfect, ᾔδειν is a past perfect, traditionally called a pluperfect in Greek grammatical studies (see 44.4.3). While pluperfects are rare in the NT for a verb form (occurring only 88 times), ᾔδειν is quite common for a single verb, occurring 33 times. Thus, it is taught here as a single verb to be learned before the verb form itself. The endings for ᾔδειν are identical to the Aorist -βαινω verbs (see 18.1.3.1) except that the vowel in the ending is ει rather than η, e.g. ᾔδει ν vs. ἀνέβη ν.

MorphologyMorphology: Participle – Luo medio-passive

Suffixes for gender, number, case are added to -ομεν based on the 1st and 2nd declension noun endings.
Be careful: the fem gen pl ending does not attract the stress like it does in many other forms, e.g. ἐρχομένων instead of ἐρχομενῶν (cf. 19.2.3.1).

Morphology: Participle – Luo medio-passive

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative singular	ἐρχόμεν-ος	ἐρχομέν-η	ἐρχόμεν-ον
Genitive singular	ἐρχομέν-ου	ἐρχομέν-ης	ἐρχομέν-ου
Dative singular	ἐρχομέν-ῳ	ἐρχομέν-ῃ	ἐρχομέν-ῳ
Accusative singular	ἐρχόμεν-ον	ἐρχομέν-ην	ἐρχόμεν-ον
Nominative plural	ἐρχόμεν-οι	ἐρχόμεν-αι	ἐρχόμεν-α
Genitive plural	ἐρχομέν-ων	ἐρχομέν-ων	ἐρχομέν-ων
Dative plural	ἐρχομέν-οις	ἐρχομέν-αις	ἐρχομέν-οις
Accusative plural	ἐρχομέν-ους	ἐρχομέν-ας	ἐρχόμεν-α

SyntaxSyntax-Semantics: Participle (3 – Verbal nominative)

Participle: all 7 parts on one page →Also in Lesson 18.2, Lesson 19.2, Lesson 27.1, Lesson 30.2, Lesson 36.1, Lesson 37.2

One of the syntactic characteristics of the genitive absolute is that the subject of the participle clause has to differ from the subject of the main clause (see 19.2.3.2). In order to describe a related event performed by the same subject, the verbal nominative participle is used:

Example 170Verbal nominative participle

Καὶ ἦλθεν κηρύσσων εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς αὐτῶν (Mark 1:39)

And he went preaching to their synagogues

There are two noteworthy points here syntactically. First, the participle agrees with the subject of the main verb in case, gender, and number. The implicit subject of ἦλθεν is identical to the subject of κηρύσσων. Second, there is no conjunction between the two events. The proper Greek idiom is not ἦλθεν καὶ κηρύσσων. With this lack of conjunction also comes a lack of specification on the relationship between the two events. We already said that aspect and world knowledge help us to determine the relationship between the two events for the genitive absolute (19.2.3.3). The same applies to the verbal use of the nominative participle.

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