Re: Participles

From: Richard Lindeman (richlind@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Dec 12 1995 - 17:38:20 EST


You wrote:
>
>
>Rich:
>
>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.
>
>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.

>Peace.

>Karen Pitts

This year is my first experience of teaching Greek and so I appreciate
your thoughts here. No, I have not read Smyth. But what you suggest
above actually sounds like it fits fairly closely with what I ended up
adopting with my first class of Greek students. Here is what I
presented as the uses of the participle:

Attributive (Adjectival use of participle)
Substantive (Noun use of participle)
Circumstantial(Adverbial use of participle)
    - Genitive Absolute (a sub-category)
Supplemental(Verbal use of participle)
    - Periphrastic (a sub-category)

Under the category of *Supplemental* I encouraged students to include
all participles which:
1. Follow the verb they modify
2. Have more of a verbal rather than an adverbial force and
3. Have a general sense of supplementing the meaning of the
   verb they are modifying
4. If the main verb is eimi or exw, then to call it *periphrastic*

As for *Circumstantial* participles I described them as participles
which:
1. Normally precede and anticipate the meaning of the main verb, but
sometimes follow the verb they modify
2. Have more of an adverbial force with relation to the main verb
3. Can be translated with any number of adverbial senses

If I have misled the students with these distinctions in any way
please let me know. However, in my own defense, I have not found the
grammars to be totally uniform - especially when it comes to the
category of "Supplemental".

Rich Lindeman

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