Participle: all parts

SemanticsSemantics: Participle (1 – Nominal; habitual vs. event-in-progress)

At its most basic level, the participle refers to an eventuality that describes someone or something, such as someone eating. It may refer directly to the entity who is in the middle of the event. This is the nominal use. It may also refer to the event itself. This is the verbal use. And finally, it may be used to describe an entity that is engaging in the event. This is the adjectival use. In each case, syntax determines the kind of meaningful contribution the participle makes.

Which part of the eventuality that is referred to is determined by its aspect. Because the Luo participle is built off the imperfective stem, it has the aspectual characteristics we have already explored with the Luo verb. Sometimes this manifests itself as a habitual interpretation:

fromLesson 18.2: Participle – Luo active masculine, neuter

SemanticsSemantics: Participle (2 – Genitive absolute)

The relationship between the subordinate clause given by the genitive absolute and the main clause is underspecified. In other words, there are many different kinds of relationships that can hold. There are two main factors for determining the relationship. First, the aspect of the participle tells us whether the eventuality is still happening when the main clause eventuality occurs or whether it has finished. The Luo participle, for example, suggests that the eventuality being referred to by the participle is still occurring during the eventuality referred to in the main clause. In contrast, the Aorist participle normally describes an eventuality that occurs before the eventuality of the main verb. Second, our world-knowledge about eventualities helps to clarify the relationship between the genitive absolute and the main clause. Temporal relationships between the two clauses are common, as we saw in our example with the prophet and teacher:

fromLesson 19.2: Participle – Luo active feminine

SyntaxSyntax-Semantics: Participle (3 – Verbal nominative)

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:

fromLesson 20.3: Participle – Luo medio-passive

SemanticsSemantics: Participle (4 – Attendant circumstance)

The participle may be used before a main verb where it takes some of its features from the main verb itself. In the literature on Greek grammar, this is sometimes called an attendant circumstance participle:

The first word καθίσας is a participle, and this is followed by the main verb in the imperative, γράψον. The correct way to understand this sentence is not ‘while sitting quickly, write 50’ as if the sitting comes prior to the command. Rather, the act of sitting is part of the command, even though only the main verb is in the imperative and not the initial participle. In other words, we interpret the mood of the participle as identical to the verb that follows it. This is a common use of the participle, but it is almost always found with Aorist forms, both as the participle and as the main verb.

fromLesson 27.1: Participle – Elusa active masculine, neuter

SyntaxSyntax-Semantics: Participle (5 – Periphrastic participles)

A periphrastic participle combines the verb εἰμί (or another copula-like verb) with a Luo or Leluka participle. In this lesson, we focus on how it is used with a Luo participle. It is called periphrastic because it is like a paraphrase of another verb form. As an illustration, the periphrastic participle construction ἦν διδάσκων (literally ‘was’ + ‘teaching’) is essentially a paraphrase of ἐδίδασκεν (διδάσκω in the Eluon form). Periphrastic participles with the Luo participle can be found with ἐστίν in Eluon, Luo, or Luso. In every case, the verbal form of ἐστίν gives the tense of the event, while the participle specifies the aspect. The forms ἦν, ἐστίν, and ἔσται correspond to past, present, and future respectively. Whenever the participle is in Luo, the aspect is imperfective.

With ἐστίν in Eluon, the periphrastic participle is equivalent to the verb in the participle in the Eluon form:

fromLesson 30.2: Participle – Efagon Active

SemanticsSemantics: Participle (8 – Past-in-the-past)

You should remember that the Leluka participle carries its perfect aspect with it. This means that it presents the event as having occurred prior to the reference time:

The time being referred to by the main verb ἔλεγον is in the past. The Leluka participle τεθεραπευμένῳ ‘the one who had been healed’ is past relative to the past event of the Jews saying something. This is what we call the “past-in-the-past” interpretation of Leluka (31.3.3.3), and it is quite common with Leluka participles. This use is characterized by an event that occurs prior to a past reference time.

fromLesson 36.1: Participle – Leluka active masculine, neuter

SemanticsSemantics: Participle (9 – Events in passive participles)

In 33.1.3.2, we said that the most common adjectival participles were those in middle or passive voice because these routinely refer to states, which adjectives also refer to. What makes middle or passive participles different from adjectives is that participles always have an event related to the state. The linguistic evidence for this is that we can add the agent in a by -phrase:

Syntactically, δοξαζόμενος is not modifying another noun or referring directly to an individual, so it is best analyzed as a verbal participle. The addition of the by -phrase, ὑπὸ πάντων, specifies who the agent is. While this might be expected for verbal passive participles, the agent can also be re-introduced with adjectival and nominal participles:

The participle εὐαγγελισθὲν is functioning adjectivally to modify the noun εὐαγγέλιον. It is a preached gospel. The by -phrase is giving the agent of the event of preaching that gospel, namely Paul. The participle ῥηθέν ‘thing spoken’ is used with the article as a noun, and the agent of the event of speaking is expressed with ὑπὸ κυρίου.

fromLesson 37.2: Participle – Leluka active feminine