Vocative & Nominative Participles Always the Same?

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chrisdrymon
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Joined: August 13th, 2012, 3:23 pm

Vocative & Nominative Participles Always the Same?

Post by chrisdrymon »

In §90 of Morphology of Biblical Greek, Mounce says nominative & vocative participles always take the same form. He cites Smyth's grammar §302. There, Smyth simply makes the same statement with no further explanation. I had a few questions about that.

1) Are they simply wrong?
2) The exceptions to this are rare in the Bible. Were they just going for simplicity?
3) In a Bibleworks search of the NT, out of 6 vocative participles, I see only one exception: κεκονιαμένε in Acts 23:3. Is it possible that Mounce is right (in a sense), and this exception is to a participle whose root was practially never used as a verb, and as far as they were concerned, κεκοινιαμέν* was always an adjective? (By the way, I would imagine this sort of process is not a terribly rare occurrence. Is there a label for it?)
4) There are more "exceptions" in the LXX. In fact, it looks like the rule is actually backwards. Out of 7 vocative participles, only 3 of them followed Mounce's "rule." What are the chances that vocative participles usually had distinct forms in 200 BC, but became very rare by the first century? Can anyone attest to this in Koine Greek outside of the Bible?
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Vocative & Nominative Participles Always the Same?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

It seems to me that you've found some bona fide exceptions to Mounce's rule. But other grammars aren't so categorical. BDF § 147(2) says, "participles ... which hardly ever form the vocative" and Wallace p. 66 n.3 counts one instance of a vocative participle in the NT (Acts 23:3). You should write to him about it.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Vocative & Nominative Participles Always the Same?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

I'm not sure where Smyth is getting his rule. A quick search finds vocative participles in -μενε in Homer, Aristophanes, and Plato. They are quite rare, however.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
chrisdrymon
Posts: 3
Joined: August 13th, 2012, 3:23 pm

Re: Vocative & Nominative Participles Always the Same?

Post by chrisdrymon »

I sent him an e-mail through Zondervan. We'll see what come of it. Thanks for checking out my question!
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