Are adverbial participles examples pronominal ellipsis?

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Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Are adverbial participles examples pronominal ellipsis?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

The basic difference between a finite verb and adverbial participle (in the nominative) is the loss of definition in the person. Greek is classified as a pro-drop language in the absolute sense. Have participles in certain cases been approached as a partial pro-drop phenomenon? The loss of the un-need definition seems to be allowable in those certain situations, without going so far as dropping the entire verb in a sequence (which could perhaps be marked by a preposition) where one of the verbs is thought to be the more important form of the verb (the one left in the finite), and the one in the participle form is the next least important verb in the description undergoing the loss of some of its pronoun definition.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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