Some questions on the usage of participles

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at saint.soongsil.ac.kr
Sat Apr 24 05:54:37 EDT 1999


Dear B-Greekers,


I have some elementary questions on the usage of participles. Some of the 
questions
seem closely related and others are not. 

1. Attributive adjectivals without the article.

The attribute position of adjectives is known to require the article in 
front of them, e.g. in
hO KALOS AGGELOS or hO AGGELOS hO KALOS. But there are some cases where 
this rule
is violated.  E.g.:

Rom 8:24: ELPIS DE BLEPOMENH OUK ESTIN ELPIS.  "hope that is seen"
Mk 5:36:  hO DE IHSOUS PARAKOUSAS TON LOGON LALOUMENOU LEGEI...
 "the word that is spoken"

These examples raised some questions to me.

1.1. Is this "violation of the rule"  quite often, especially in the case 
of
participles?

1.2. Is there NO difference bewteen the attributive expressions with the 
article and
those without the article?

1.3. Is AGGELOS hO KALOS legal?  If so,  should I translate it as  "the 
good angel" or
"a good angel"? 

1.4. Is AGGELOS KALOS legal? If so, can it mean "a good angel"?

2.   Explicit subjects of attributive participle clauses??

Consider Mt 2:7: HKRIBWSEN TON CRONON TOU FAINOUMENOU ASTEROS
(he asked the time of the star's appearing). 

Here I take FAINOUMENOU ASTEROS as a participle clause with  the article 
TOU
in front of it. The genitive ASTEROS plays the role of the subject of  
FAINOUMENOU.
Is this analysis correct? Are there other examples similar to this?

Or should we take TOU FAINOUMENOU ASTEROS to mean "of the star that 
appeared"?
But "the time of the star that appeared" does not make sense to me. 

3. Complementary participles after ARCOMAI (begin)?

On  recent posts on Lk 7:45 there were discussions on "complementary 
participles"
 used after verbs of ceasing: DIELIPEN KATAFILUOUSA (stop kissing]. I 
wonder if
 complementary participles can be used after verbs of beginning.
 This question was raised by the way most translations take Mk 2:23b.

2:23a KAI EGENETO AUTON EN TOIS SABBASIN PARAPOREUESQAI DIA TWN SPORIMWN
2:23b: KAI hOI MAQHTAI AUTOU HRXANTO hODON POIEIN TILLONTES TOUS STACUAS.
 
Most translations took 2:23n to mean "and his disciples began, as they 
went,
to pluck the ears."
 
My initial attempt was "his disciples began to make their way plucking the 
ears".

The "official translations" take the infinitive clause hODON POIEIN as a 
temporal clause,
even though there is  no preposition in front of it, e.g. EN TWi. I wonder 
if this translation
is grammatically possible.
   

Respectfully
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea



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