Time of Participles Relative to Finite Verb and Sentence Structure: S. Porter's Hypothesis

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 15 08:04:58 EDT 2002


At 7:30 PM +0800 8/15/02, Cal Redmond wrote:
>In his book Idioms, Stanley Porter discuss the time of participles
>relative to the time of the main verb.  He gives the following
>generalization on p. 188 of the first edition:
>"If a participle occurs before the finite verb on which it depends (or
>another verb which forms the governing or head term of the
>construction), the participle tends to refer to antecedent (preceding)
>action.  If a participle occurs after the finite (or other) verb on
>which it depends, it tends to refer to concurrent (simultaneous) or
>subsequent (following) action."
>
>I have not encountered this generalization before, nor am I aware of a
>reaction to it.  Can any of you help me by either affirming or denying
>this generalization?

We did have a nice discussion of this at least once on B-Greek (a search
for messages with "participles" in it found over 800~!); here's one of the
more telling pieces from our archives of five years ago, with details for
Marcan usage, from Rod Decker:

>Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 15:03:27 -0500
>To: b-greek at virginia.edu
>From: Rod Decker <rdecker at bbc.edu>
>Subject: Re: More on Participles . . .
>
>Carl, followed by Don, said,
>
>>>In sum then, I think I'd say that an aorist participle preceding a main
>>>verb in narrative very common indicates action prior to that of the main
>>>verb--but not necessarily is this always the case--and that it is less
>>>likely to be the case when you have a participle FOLLOWING the main verb.
>>
>>Carl, I think you're right about the uses of the participles here, but I've
>>done some research (more yet to be done) on this question and found that
>>there are probably as many (or maybe more) examples of such "postpositive"
>>aorist participles referring to prior action as otherwise. It seems that the
>>position has more to do with emphasis or deemphasis (somewhat in the sense
>>of an afterthought) than with the timing of events.
>
>Here is a draft of some prelim. work on this question in Mark; I've
>included both aor. and pres. adv. ptcps.:
>
>___________________
>There are 541 participles in Mark (248 present, 253 aorist, and 40
>perfect). The following section examines the temporal use of the participle
>in three selected chapters: Mark 2, 6, and 15. In these three chapters, the
>adverbial participle is evaluated for relative temporal reference in
>relation to the main verb and in relation to the word order of participle
>and verb. This provides a test corpus of  55 aorist and 22 present forms.
>
>Of the 55 adverbial aorist participles in the sample sections, 47 (85.5%)
>express antecedent time and 8 (14.5%) refer to simultaneous time. No
>instances of subsequent reference were observed. In both groups word order
>alone was not an adequate criteria as both antecedent and simultaneous
>reference was found with participles occurring both before and after the
>main verb. There was a clear pattern in both instances, however. With
>antecedent action the participle occured before the main verb in 45 of the
>47 instances. Simultaneous action likewise favors the sequence: participle
>> verb (7 or the 8 instances). At least in the sample passages, aorist
>verbs clearly tend to occur before the main verb.
>
>Aorist Participles in Mark 3, 6, 15
>
>Before the verb
>   Antecedent
>       2:1, 4, 5, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17
>       6:2, 5, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22a, b, 24, 25, 27b,
>            29, 34, 35a, b, 36, 37b, 38, 41a, 46, 48, 53, 54
>       15:1a, b, 8, 35, 36a, b, c, 37, 39, 43a, 44, 45, 46a, b
>   Simultaneous
>       6:26, 27a, 37a, 41; 15:2, 12, 43b
>
>After the verb
>   Antecedent
>       15:15, 17
>   Simultaneous
>       15:30
>
>
>Present Participles
>
>Of the 22 adverbial present participles in the sample sections, only one
>expresses antecedent time and 21 refer to simultaneous time. No instances
>of subsequent reference were found in the sample section. Word order alone
>was not an adequate criteria as simultaneous reference was found with
>participles occurring both before and after the main verb. There was a
>fairly clear pattern, however. With simultaneous action the participle
>occured after the main verb in 16 of the 21 instances. At least in the
>sample passages, present verbs clearly tend to occur after the main verb.
>
>Present Participles in Mark 3, 6, 15
>
>Before the verb
>   Antecedent
>       2:4
>   Simultaneous
>      6:2a, 11; 15:15, 19, 31
>
>After the verb
>   Antecedent
>      [none]
>   Simultaneous
>      2:3a, b, 12, 14, 23; 6:2b, 6, 25, 33, 48b; 15:4, 9, 24, 29a, c, 36
>
>___________________
>Rod
>
>_________________________________________________________________
> Rodney J. Decker                        Baptist Bible Seminary
> Asst. Prof./NT                                     P O Box 800
> rdecker at bbc.edu                       Clarks Summit  PA  18411
> http://www.bbc.edu/courses/BBS/RDecker/Index.htm           USA
>_________________________________________________________________
>
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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