Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

RandallButh
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Hughes wrote:There seem to be 15 NT examples of participles used as adverbs - ὄντως (x11) ὁμολογουμένως (x1), ὑπερβαλλόντως (x1), φειδομένως (x2):
...They could be less said to be an adverb with a subject than an adverbial prepositional phrase which included some information about a person - perhaps a subjective genitive -could.
Nice.
Yes, those are adverbs, note the ending -ως, and built out of adjective formations just like all -ως adverbs. As adverbs they do not co-refer to a noun nor to a subject.

However, these are not what people refer to when talking in English about "adverbial participles."
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:... these are not what people refer to when talking in English about "adverbial participles."
From simple logic arising from assertations people make about the temporal relationship between participles and finite verbs, if (and I am not implicitly supporting that view) the aorist participle refers to an action before a present finite verb, and a present participle describes an action that happens at the same time as a present finite verb, then aorist participles with present finite verbs could be thought of as adverbs of time - seeing as they are providing a time reference mark the time that something happens, while present participles with present finite verbs may be either adverbs of manner - seeing as they happen at the same time and may influence the way that the action of the main verb happens, or adverbs of time - seeing as the action of the participle could be used as a time reference for the main verb. BUT ... in many cases those logical assumptions don't seem to work in the actual text.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by RandallButh »

The simple point is that all of this talk about "adverbial participles" is English metalanguage and does not elucidate the structure of Greek but adds a layer of abstraction.

The Greek is really simple.

Participles are adjectives built from verbs (until converted into adverbs by the -ως ending).
Because they are built from verbs they carry aspect and voice.
Like adjectives they can be used inside a definite noun phrase and without a definite noun phrase (aka. 'attributively', 'predicatively').

Nominative participles co-refer to an explicit subject or to an implicit subject within a finite verb.

Participles in other cases, like adjectives, co-refer to a noun-phrase in that case explicitly, or implicitly become that noun phrase.

"Adverbial participles" is an attempt to make things 'clear' for English students, although it appears that it unnecessarily gummies up the works. I prefer for students to follow the Greek directly in a more streamlined fashion. Then, later, they can learn how to talk with people tied up in English metalanguage.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Yeah, I don't like "adverbial participles" either. To me, the term "adverbial" is a fairly reliable signal of muddle-headed shenanigans in language pedagogy.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

RandallButh wrote:Nominative participles co-refer to an explicit subject or to an implicit subject within a finite verb.

Participles in other cases, like adjectives, co-refer to a noun-phrase in that case explicitly, or implicitly become that noun phrase.
If I understand this correctly, you are saying that what we usually call an adverbial participle is actually adjectival, modifying either the subject of the main verb (if the participle is nominative) or the subject constituent of the clause containing the participle (if not nominative)?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
RandallButh wrote:Nominative participles co-refer to an explicit subject or to an implicit subject within a finite verb.

Participles in other cases, like adjectives, co-refer to a noun-phrase in that case explicitly, or implicitly become that noun phrase.
If I understand this correctly, you are saying that what we usually call an adverbial participle is actually adjectival, modifying either the subject of the main verb (if the participle is nominative) or the subject constituent of the clause containing the participle (if not nominative)?
Not necessarily "modifying" as with attributive participles, participles can also predicate. Dag Haug has some slide on three functions of predicative participles: http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/rese ... s/Haug.pdf
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:If I understand this correctly, you are saying that what we usually call an adverbial participle is actually adjectival, modifying either the subject of the main verb (if the participle is nominative) or the subject constituent of the clause containing the participle (if not nominative)?
Not answering for anybody else's opinion except my own, I think the relationship between participles and the finite verb is often over-analysed (and over-rated). Participal sentencess were originally a way of compacting (or enlivening) narrative based on the structures that verbs like παύειν (+ part.) followed. In most cases, it is a feature of Greek on the level of the omission of the pronoun in "I came, saw and conquered." They are an important part of the language, but shouldn't be given a significance based on our (English speakers') feelings of exoticism. In other words, we shouldn't let the impression of "Wow! That's so different to English" translate into "They must do so many things that we can't even imagine what."
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Not necessarily "modifying" as with attributive participles, participles can also predicate. Dag Haug has some slide on three functions of predicative participles: http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/rese ... s/Haug.pdf
This is really an excellent presentation. Thanks for sharing it - I hadn't seen it before.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
MAubrey
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by MAubrey »

RandallButh wrote:The simple point is that all of this talk about "adverbial participles" is English metalanguage and does not elucidate the structure of Greek but adds a layer of abstraction.

The Greek is really simple.

Participles are adjectives built from verbs (until converted into adverbs by the -ως ending).
Because they are built from verbs they carry aspect and voice.
Like adjectives they can be used inside a definite noun phrase and without a definite noun phrase (aka. 'attributively', 'predicatively').

Nominative participles co-refer to an explicit subject or to an implicit subject within a finite verb.

Participles in other cases, like adjectives, co-refer to a noun-phrase in that case explicitly, or implicitly become that noun phrase.

"Adverbial participles" is an attempt to make things 'clear' for English students, although it appears that it unnecessarily gummies up the works. I prefer for students to follow the Greek directly in a more streamlined fashion. Then, later, they can learn how to talk with people tied up in English metalanguage.
The Greek is really simple. That we can agree on.

But there's plenty of room for debate as to whether this proposed nomenclature achieves comparable simplicity. You're defining (or appear to be defining) 'adjective' solely on the basis of morphological structure. But that's hardly the only criteria (and certainly not the most important criteria) for establishing PoS classes.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
RandallButh
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Re: Do adverbial participles have an implicit subject?

Post by RandallButh »

You're defining (or appear to be defining) 'adjective' solely on the basis of morphological structure.
Actually, I'm not defining a syntactical category "adjective" or "adverb" solely by morphology, but I am using the morphology of the verb to place specific verbal forms in the class-category of "adjective". Then proceeding to follow the adjectival referential ties mixed with the signaled verbal semantics (aorist, continuative; disposition, ktl). There is even room for nominals (nouns and adjectives) to be related to a clause in a diffuse, non-nominal way, aka "adverbial accusative". But this takes one away from the starting discussion about a nominative participle being co-referential with a subject.
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