Participle (Ancient Greek)
The Ancient Greek participle is a non-finite nominal verb form declined for gender, number and case and has many functions in Ancient Greek. It can be active, middle or passive and can be used in the present, future, aorist and perfect tense; these tenses normally represent not absolute time but only time relative to the main verb of the sentence. In general, as it shows no personal endings, its main use is to express an action or situation that accompanies the action or situation expressed by the main verb.
Terminology
The Greek grammarians called a participle a μετοχή 'participation, share', because it shares the properties of a verb and of an adjective. Latin calqued the word as participium, from which English gets participle.Uses of the participle
Three main syntactic uses of the participle can be distinguished: the participle as a modifier of a noun the participle used as an obligatory argument of a verb, the participle as an adverbial satellite of a verbal predicate.The attributive participle
The attributive participle is often, though not always, used with the article ; it functions as a common adjective, it can be in every tense stem, and it is on a par with – and thus often translated as – a relative clause. It shows agreement with a noun, present or implied, in a sentence, and can be assigned any syntactic role an adjective can hold.Like any adjective it can be used substantively by omission of an understood noun :
Many participles of this sort are equivalent to – and thus translated as – nouns, e.g.:
An adverbial notion may be inherent in an attributive participle; the usual notions are those of purpose or consequence, and condition. The following example has a future participle indicating purpose:
The supplementary participle
The supplementary participle is always without the article and can be in any tense stem. This participle has two major uses: in indirect discourse, and not in indirect discourse.The supplementary participle in indirect statements
When in this use, the participle corresponds to a particular tense and mood of a simple indicative of any tense, and, if accompanied by the particle ἄν, to potential optative or potential indicative. Verbs taking such a participial clause as an object complement are:i) Verbs of perceiving, knowing, discovering, remembering and so on such as: ὁράω "see that", ἀκούω "hear that", αἰσθάνομαι "perceive, notice that", γιγνώσκω "come to know, perceive, realize that", ἀγνοέω "not to know", καταλαμβάνω "find that", εὑρίσκω "find that", αἱρέω "catch, detect someone doing something", μανθάνω "learn, know that", οἶδα "know that", σύνοιδα "know, or be conscious that", ἐπίσταμαι "understand that", τίθημι "consider that" μέμνημαι "remember that", ἐπιλανθάνομαι "forget that".
ii) Verbs of presentation, i.e. verbs meaning '"announce, show, prove"' such as: ἀγγέλλω "report that", δείκνυμι "show, explain, point out that", ἐλέγχω "prove that".
In many of the above cases this participle is interchangeable with a clause introduced by ὅτι or ὡς, for example:
The following case constructions are available for such a supplementary participle:
a. The logical "subject" of the participle and the grammatical subject of the governing verb are coreferential, the participle being put in the nominative case, agreeing with it :
b. The supplementary participle modifies a noun phrase as if it were a "subject" of its own and both the participle and this noun are put in the accusative case, just like an accusative and infinitive construction. This is the case where the argument of the verb is not the noun, even though it seems to be a real accusative object, but the verbal notion expressed by the participle itself:
In each of the above sentences, if the participle is taken away, then the remaining construction is ungrammatical, considering that each governing verb retains its initial meaning. This proves that the noun or pronoun is an argument of the participle only, rather than of the verb.
Speaking in modern linguistic terms, this is a case of exceptional case marking, and verbs allowing that are called raising-to-object ones.
However, with verbs like ὁράω "see", ἀκούω "hear", εὑρίσκω "find", there is another possible construction that does not involve indirect speech, but is a mere description of a sensory input:
In the above sentences αὐτόν and Σωκράτους are second arguments of the verbs εἶδον and ἀκούω respectively, while the participles are added as their third arguments. Here by no means can any ECM phenomenon be attributed. Even further, with such verbs as ἀκούω, which normally take an object in the genitive denoting the source producing a sound, the distinction between the two types of construction is clear. Compare the above example, where Σωκράτους is in the genitive case, with the one below, where Κῦρον is in the accusative case:
The supplementary participle not in indirect discourse
When this participle is used not in indirect discourse, the following constructions are possible:i) It is part of a predicate formed out by a copula verb, used mostly as an auxiliary verb; such verbs are: εἰμί “be”, γίγνομαι “become”, rarely ὑπάρχω “happen to be”.
ii) It forms a predicate with a quasi-copular verb that expresses a way of being, like δῆλός εἰμι, φαίνομαι/φανερός εἰμι "be manifest", λανθάνω "be hidden, unobserved, unseen, unnoticed, unaware", οἴχομαι "be gone, away or absent", τυγχάνω "happen to be", φθάνω "be beforehand with". Semantically, with all these verbs it is the participle itself that expresses the main action, while in many cases the quasi-copular verb qualifies this action almost like an adverbial constituent.
All these verbs always have a grammatical subject that is corefential with the logical subject of the participle; only the verbs λανθάνω and φθάνω may have an appended accusative object, as a third argument of the verb, denoting the person from whom someone/something is kept hidden or the person that someone overtakes in the action expressed by the participle.
NOTE: some of those verbs may also be used as governing verbs in indirect discourse supplemented either by a participle or a clausal construction introduced by the particles ὅτι or ὡς.
iii) It is the complement of verbs denoting commencement, continuation or termination of an action, and it is always in the present tense stem; such verbs are: ὑπάρχω "begin, take the initiative in", ἄρχομαι "start, begin", παύω "cause to cease, stop from", παύομαι "cease, stop", λήγω "leave off, cease", ἀπαγορεύω "give up", κάμνω "be tired or weary", διαβιῶ "spend my whole life", διαμένω, διάγω, διαγίγνομαι, oὐ διαλείπω, διατελῶ "continue, keep up", ἀνέχομαι "tolerate", περιοράω "overlook". With these verbs the participle’s logical subject is coreferent with the verb’s grammatical subject, if there is no object in the structure, or else with the object, and the participle agrees in case with this word.
iv) A supplementary participle can be used with verbs expressing passions of the soul, such as ἀγανακτῶ "be vexed", αἰσχύνομαι "be ashamed", ἥδομαι "be pleased", χαίρω "be happy", λυποῦμαι "be sorry", ὀργίζομαι "get angry".
v) Finally, it is used with some verbs not easy to classify: εὖ/καλῶς/κακῶς/δίκαια/δεινὰ ποιῶ "behave well, honourably, fairly, badly", χαρίζομαι "gratify, favour", ἀδικῶ "do wrong", νικῶ "defeat", περιγίγνομαι "prevail, survive", κρατῶ "have the better of", ἡττῶμαι "be worsted by", λείπομαι "be left behind, fall short".
The circumstantial (adverbial) participle
The circumstantial participle, used as a satellite of another verbal form, is always without the article. It is added as a modifier to a noun or pronoun to denote the circumstance under which the action of another verbal form takes place. The action of the main verb is the main one.It is also called adverbial because it qualifies the main verb like any other adverb, adverbially used adjective, adverbial prepositional phrase, adverbial clause or supplementary predicate. In most of the cases it has the force of a dependent clause denoting time, cause, purpose, supposition, opposition, concession. Often it denotes manner-means or any other attendant circumstance.
Two main constructions can be distinguished:
i) the participle as a modifier agrees in case with a noun or pronoun that is an argument of the main verb, usually subject, direct or indirect object or dative of interest of any kind. In this case the logical subject of the participle is coreferent to that verbal argument.
ii) participial phrases, composed by the participle and a quasi-subject noun phrase; such structures form a full new predicate, additional to the verbal predicate: a so-called absolute construction. It is so called because case marking of the whole construction stands "loosened, separated, free" from the verbal argumentation
Two subtypes can be distinguished:
Genitive absolute: the participle modifies a noun or pronoun that stands in the genitive case; in this construction normally the word serving as the logical subject of the participle has no coreference to any other verbal argument, especially the subject. But exceptions are found.
Accusative absolute: it is found when the verb in which the participle belongs is impersonal or so used, or when it is an impersonal expression; in this case the subject of the participle is usually an infinitive, as it would be if an impersonal verb in some finite mood was used. This kind of participle is always put in the neuter gender, modifying a neuter noun, as an infinitive really is. Nevertheless, it is also possible for a personal verb’s participle to stand with its noun in the accusative absolute construction, if only it is preceded by the particles ὡς or ὥσπερ and expresses cause or conditional comparison respectively.