Re: Participles

From: Carlton Winbery (winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net)
Date: Tue Dec 12 1995 - 15:33:40 EST


Karen Pitts wrote;
>Here's my view of participles and how to teach them to beginners. The first
>time I had to teach participles, I was thouroughly dissatisfied with the
>beginning grammars I had at my disposal. I reviewed Smyth's description of
>participles and then taugtht that participles can be either
>
> functioning as a adjective (the one who teaches) or substantive (noun)
> supplementary to the main verb, completing the thought, especially following
> kinds of verbs (Smyth has an extensive list that I don't want to attempt
> from memory)
> adverbial clause, either time related or causational
> genitive absolute
>
>You may already know what Smyth says about supplementary stuff, but if you
>don't, I recommend it. I found it very helpful, and I don't think koine is
>different from classical here.
>
>I found that presenting it in these four categories clarified the usage
>enough. I haven't made a study based on word order, but knowing that the
>participle can be either modifying the noun, supplementing the verb, or
>introducing an adverbial clause seemed to clarify things sufficiently to get
>them translating.

Karen, James Brooks and I dealt with the participle in Syntax of NT Greek,
UPA 1978 by first defining the participle as a verbal adjective and then
organizing the syntax according to the four ways the adjective functions,
attributive, substantival, predicative, and adverbial. Of course the
adverbial participle is far more prevalent than the adjective used as an
adverb. We dealt with the genitive absolute as an adverbial ptc. since it
often must be translated as a temporal clause. Our students have been able
to relate to this structure very well.

Carlton Winbery
Prof. Religion
LA College,
Pineville,La
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
fax (318) 442-4996



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