present participle

Alan B. Thomas a_b_thomas at yahoo.com
Sun Feb 11 16:59:25 EST 2001



--- Michael Markey <mike_mikie at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> I have a "Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible" published by
> AMG Publishers; in it, it says of the present
> participle: "The Present Participle ... expresses
> continuous or repeated action.  It does not in
> itself
> indicate the time of the action, but when its
> relationship to the main verb is temporal, it
> usually
> signifies action contempoarary with that of the main
> verb.  Example: "While they were eating (present
> participle),...he broke (the bread)" (Mk. 14:22)."
> 
> My question is:  does the present participle
> *always*
> express *continuous* or *repeated action*?  
> 

No. The present participle would just indicate that he
broke bread at the time of their eating. The eating
need not be a "continuous" or "repeated" action.

It's hard to find any grammatical principle that
"always" holds true. I think the nature of language is
generally against such an idea. Languages are very
"human."

Hope that helps. 

=====
Sincerely,

Alan B. Thomas

"Actually, there was no final "s" on "toward," but
now it's acceptable. Languages just change."

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