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The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: July 23rd, 2013, 10:43 pm
by Louis L Sorenson
Here is a bibliography of some works on participles. What is the most current up-to-date discussion of this topic?

R Kuhner, Ausfurliche Grammatik Der Griechischen Sprach, Vol II, 1872, pp. 609-669 (§§480-496)
Burton, Moods and Tenses of Biblical Greek, (3rd ed., 1893), pp. 53-72, 163-177 (§115-56. 418-463)
JH Moulton, Grammar of Greek New Testament: Prolegomena (Vol I) (1906) pp. 221-232
HW Smyth, A Greek Grammar, (1920, 1956), pp. 454-480 (§§2039-2152)
Dana-Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, (1927, 1955), pp. 220-233 (§§196-203)
AT Robertson, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament in Light of Historical Research, (1934), pp. 1095-1141
CDF Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek, (1959), pp. 99-105
Blass, DeBrunner Funk , A Greek Grammar of the New Testment and Other Early Christian Literature, (1961)174-75, 212-20 (§339, 411-23)
Nigel Turner Grammar of Greek New Testament: Syntax Vol III, (1962) pp. 150-162
Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek: Illustrated with Examples (Translated in English by Joseph Smith), (1963), pp. 125-131 (§§360-377)
E Van Ness Goetchius, The Language of the New Testament,(1965), pp. 165-190 (§§205-247)
Brooks-Winberry, Syntax of New Testament Greek, (1979) pp. 126-138
RW Funk, A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek (3rd Ed. 2013, 2nd ed. 1979), pp. 438-448 (§§0770-779.3)
J.L Boyer, "The Classification of Participles: A Statistical Study," Grace Theological Journal, 5 (1984), 163-179
Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, (1992), pp. 191-193
RA Young, Intermediate New Testament Greek: A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach, (1994), pp. 147-163
K.L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach, (1994) pp. 60-66.
DB Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, (1996) pp. 612-655
Albert Rijksbaron, The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek: An Introduction (3rd ed. 2002), IVB pp116-133 (§§36-40)

I'm sure other works could be added to this list. Has there been any change in the understanding of the participle in the last 150 years? I find in interesting that Kuhner and Smyth have about twice as many quotes; Robertson and BDF also have many citations. Most of the other grammars are intermediate or have have a narrow focus. How is Rijksbaron different than the older works? Are there any recent monographs or dissertations on the participle?

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: July 24th, 2013, 12:49 am
by MAubrey
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I find in interesting that Kuhner and Smyth have about twice as many quotes; Robertson and BDF also have many citations.
Kuhner was brilliant. There's a reason that they were still celebrating the publication of his grammar 150 years after the fact:

In the Footsteps of Raphael Kuhner: Proceedings on the International Colloquium in Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Publication of Raphael Kuhner's Ausfurliche Grammatik Der Griechischen Sprach,edited by Rijksbaron, Mulder, & Bakker

For those that don't read German, the translation by Jelf is a reliable edition--even in the 1866 edition where he removed Kuhner's name as the author and claimed it for himself, the material is still fundamentally that of Kuhner, at least for the verbal system--I've checked that rather closely.

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: July 24th, 2013, 5:49 am
by Louis L Sorenson
Jelf's work can be found on Google Books.
Vol I Accidence: http://books.google.com/books?id=oY0CAA ... CDoQ6AEwAg
Vol II Syntax: http://books.google.com/books?id=040CAA ... CDMQ6AEwAQ

The Participles are discussed on pp. 387(§680) - 418 (§712)

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: July 24th, 2013, 9:10 am
by Stephen Carlson
A recent article on NT participles is:

Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (2012). Open verb-based adjuncts in New Testament Greek — with a view to the Latin Vulgate translation, In Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen & Dag Trygve Truslew Haug (ed.), Big Events, Small Clauses. The Grammar of Elaboration. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-028586-4. Chapter 7.

Parts of this chapter can be espied in Google books.

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 2nd, 2013, 12:14 pm
by Louis L Sorenson
I just read this in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: The Hellenistic Period and the Empire (1989), on page 148, talking about Appian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian) and his use of participles. How is the participle different in Koine? Here is the citation:
Herodotus' influence has also been noted in Appian's language and style, as
has that of Thucydides and Xenophon. Despite his twenty-four books (perhaps
a Homeric touch) Appian sees himself treading the path of classical historians,
But his style neither imitates any individual (as Arrian imitates Xenophon) nor
does it adopt an extreme Atticist position. Although he draws on the classics
for phraseology, continues to use the dual and shows care in avoiding hiatus,
there is much influence from the koine, especially in his use of participles. and
prepositions
. Worse still, the influence of Latin has been seen in his syntax, in
the meanings of certain words and in his formation of compounds. He is one of
the few Greek writers of any pretensions to admit Latin terms in transliteration
such as λίβερτος for freedman, ἰντέρρηγα for interrex and ἰγκουϊλῖνον for lodger.
But in each case there is a good reason for giving the Latin term (much more
often Appian offers a Greek equivalent or a periphrasis) and the decision is
characteristic of the hard-headed barrister who understood and respected the
workings of the Roman system and had no sympathy for the Cynics

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 2nd, 2013, 12:36 pm
by cwconrad
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I just read this ,,,, about Appian ,,, and his use of participles. How is the participle different in Koine?
A good question. My impression, which is at this point insufficiently tested but is informed by considerable reading over the years, is that the usage of participles in Hellenistic Greek is considerably more extensive than it was in the Classical era. I do think that there's almost certainly some variation between individual authors, and, perhaps obviously, more careful elaboration in "better" authors (more painstaking stylists?). I'm going to undertake a little unscientific experiment and read through a book of Herodotus, some Thucydides, some Plato, and some Lucian. Lucian may very well be indicative, since he's generally considered a fervent Atticist. Another text worth checking for participle usage is a novelist -- I know that some here have been reading Chariton's Callirhoe; I'll check pseudo-Lucian's Asinus too.

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 3rd, 2013, 9:05 am
by Jonathan Robie
Anyone with TLG access able to give us stats on this?

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 4th, 2013, 3:58 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:My impression, which is at this point insufficiently tested but is informed by considerable reading over the years, is that the usage of participles in Hellenistic Greek is considerably more extensive than it was in the Classical era. I do think that there's almost certainly some variation between individual authors, and, perhaps obviously, more careful elaboration in "better" authors (more painstaking stylists?).
Giving all due respect to you years of experience and wider reading history, I suggest that perhaps you could make a conscious effort to notice what the text type is inside the individual authour you are reading (narrative, explicative, descriptive... your experience should be able to come up with a better set of usages of text than I can yet).

I also suggest that you take participial usage together with relative usage as an linguistic opposable pair.

The use that we looked at for participles in the Ephesians passage was just one type of usage, my desire for balance and need for language to be a balanced system tells me that we should look wider into other usages.

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 4th, 2013, 8:32 am
by cwconrad
While I'd like to get beyond general impressions based upon a careful reading of selected earlier and later literary texts, I'm certainly cognizant that we may expect differences in usage of participles in different literary genres (e.g., historical narrative, dialogue, expository prose, etc. -- I don't think we ever did reach any consensus on a generic categorization of the text in Eph 1 that was discussed), my idea was that gathering some initial data would have to precede any systematic compilation of data and analysis. As for Jonathan's question regarding searching the TLG corpus for evidence regarding Hellenistic and earlier participial usage, I would think that, although it's easy enough to collect all the instances of participial usage in any selection of texts, interpretation should depend upon an agreed-upon categorization of usages. Finally, while it's clear that participial phrases sometimes function in a manner similar to relative clauses, I'm not at all convinced that participial usage and relative usage ought to be treated as "a linguistic opposable pair." Our assumptions of how usages ought to be categorized must surely have a considerable bearing upon the usefulness of any findings. But that is probably to state the obvious.

Re: The Participle: The Workhorse of Greek

Posted: August 4th, 2013, 11:02 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:while it's clear that participial phrases sometimes function in a manner similar to relative clauses, I'm not at all convinced that participial usage and relative usage ought to be treated as "a linguistic opposable pair."
What can a relative clause do that a participle can't (or doesn't usually) do? And vice versa.

How would you react to this statement?
The relative is used to add another active player into the sentence. (or to put it another way) The participle adds another verbal action to the sentence, but it can only do so if the actor of that verb is directly related to the finite verb of the sentence.
cwconrad wrote:I don't think we ever did reach any consensus on a generic categorization of the text in Eph 1 that was discussed
No. We didn't. I hope that at the end of working through the issues on participles and text-type, we will be able to see the issue in perspective with a greater field of vision and a greater depth of focus.