Participial antecedent

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Mike Baber
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Participial antecedent

Post by Mike Baber »

In Koine Greek, must every participle have an antecedent (whether implicit or explicit in the text itself)?
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Participial antecedent

Post by Stephen Carlson »

I usually reserve the term "antecedent" for pronouns.

Like adjectives, participles do not have to refer to another entity. For example, they can be substantivized with the article.

Stephen
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Mike Baber
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Re: Participial antecedent

Post by Mike Baber »

Stephen Carlson wrote:I usually reserve the term "antecedent" for pronouns.

Like adjectives, participles do not have to refer to another entity. For example, they can be substantivized with the article.

Stephen
You're right. Maybe I should just explain what I mean.

Does every participle modify something, whether that "something" is implicit (unwritten) or explicit (written) in the text?

Let's take ὁ πιστεύων in 1 John 5:5. Doesn't πιστεύων modify ὁ? We could think of it as "the one (ὁ) believing (πιστεύων)" or "he (ὁ) who believes (πιστεύων)."
cwconrad
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Re: Participial antecedent

Post by cwconrad »

Mike Baber wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:I usually reserve the term "antecedent" for pronouns.

Like adjectives, participles do not have to refer to another entity. For example, they can be substantivized with the article.

Stephen
You're right. Maybe I should just explain what I mean.

Does every participle modify something, whether that "something" is implicit (unwritten) or explicit (written) in the text?

Let's take ὁ πιστεύων in 1 John 5:5. Doesn't πιστεύων modify ὁ?
Quite to the conrary, ὁ depends upon πιστεύων in the same manner as an adjective on a noun that it modified. ὁ πιστεύων functions as a noun, in this instance as the subject of an implicit clause, ὁ πιστεύων [ἐστίν ὁ νικῶν τον κόσμον]. A participle can function substantivally -- like a noun, as in this instance, adjectivally -- like an adjective describing a noun, or adverbially, in agreement with some substantive but characterizing the action of the predicate associated with that substantive. Only pronouns have "antecedents" -- at least, in the standard traditional sense of the word "antecedent."
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
David Lim
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Re: Participial antecedent

Post by David Lim »

Mike Baber wrote:[...]

Does every participle modify something, whether that "something" is implicit (unwritten) or explicit (written) in the text?

Let's take ὁ πιστεύων in 1 John 5:5. Doesn't πιστεύων modify ὁ?
For comparison, an adjective A always occurs in one of the following structures ("T" and "N" denote the article and noun):
{ "T A [N]" / "T N T A" } (N is definite)
{ "[N] A" / "N T A" / "A N" } (N is indefinite)

So I would consider the whole participle clause as an adjective because it occurs in the same structures:
"T A N" : "του πεμψαντος με πατρος" (John 6:39)
"T A" : "τοις τας περιστερας πωλουσιν" (John 2:16) , "ο ποιων την δικαιοσυνην" (1 John 2:29) , "ο πιστευων" (1 John 5:5)
"T N T A" : "ο αρτος ο καταβας εκ του ουρανου" (John 6:41) , "η νικη η νικησασα τον κοσμον" (1 John 5:4)
"T N T ( A και A )" : "των δυο των ( ακουσαντων παρα ιωαννου και ακολουθησαντων αυτω )" (John 1:40)
"N A" : "ανθρωπος απεσταλμενος παρα θεου" (John 1:6)
"A" : "βοωντος εν τη ερημω" (John 1:23)
"N T A" : "εκ των φαρισαιων ... οι οντες μετ αυτου" (John 9:40)
"( N T A ) A" : "( κολυμβηθρα η επιλεγομενη εβραιστι βηθεσδα ) πεντε στοας εχουσα" (John 5:2)
"A N" : Does anyone know any example?

The typical structure for a participle seems to be:
"T A" (implicit definite noun)
"T N T A" (definite noun)
"A" (implicit indefinite noun)
"N T A" (indefinite noun)

There are more examples of the usage of determiners, adjectives and participles at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/f ... on-47.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/f ... on-53.html

Although I would say that the participle functions like an adjective and modifies a noun (whether an explicit or implicit noun), it cannot be said that the article like in "ο πιστευων" can stand on its own as a noun at all, just as we would not say that "poor" modifies "the" in "the poor" in English.
δαυιδ λιμ
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