[B-Greek] Adverbial Participles

Suedaleg at aol.com Suedaleg at aol.com
Mon Sep 22 10:04:13 EDT 2003


Sirs:

The challenge of translating praticipial clauses (phrases) is that in Greek 
the participle can modify either the noun (adjectival) or the verb (adverbial). 
 

A greater challenge to understanding the translation is that in English the 
same form may be used for a participle as for an active predicate. Eample: ( to 
borrow the one Conrad used)

John was walking into the city and saw . . .
While John was walking into the city he saw . . .

The difference is that the second (adverbial) uses the phrase, by adding a 
connector (while) now explains when the action (saw) took place.  Other 
possibilities of this form would be "after", "before", "because", or "by".  Sometimes 
to make the best sense in translation we need to include these connectors and 
make the participle modify the action rather than the noun.  This becomes in 
English a subordinate clause.

Another tricky part is that even if this is the case, the participle still 
agrees with the noun which is active in its action in most cases.  (An excetion 
is the Genetive Absolute.)

Thanks for hearing my two cents
Dale Greenlee



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