[B-Greek] time in participles

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Feb 12 06:01:50 EST 2008


On Feb 11, 2008, at 8:36 PM, Pastor Shawn Ragan wrote:

> When I did my first year Greek course, I remember the Greek  
> participle had
> case, number, gender, voice, & aspect.  We were taught that the  
> participle
> did not have time, only aspect.  I remember that the aspect could be
> understood with time in relation to the governing verb (antecedent,  
> etc.).
>
>
>
> Recently, I was looking through participles and I saw the future  
> participle.
> Future is clearly time (as opposed to progressive, aorist, and perfect
> aspects).  Then I read a grammar that seemed to indicate it was  
> tense, not
> aspect that is in the Greek participle.
>
>
>
> Could someone help clarify this for me, especially in relation to  
> the future
> participle.  Thanks.

I think that in the case of participles, as in the case of other  
grammatical features, oversimplification is a factor leading to  
misunderstanding (perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the matter  
of voice morphology).

Participles do indeed indicate primarily aspect, but
(a) they are not uncommonly used with forms of EIMI or ECW (that's  
more Classical Attic) to form "periphrastic" tenses, e.g. the  
pluperfect = imperfect HN ENDEDUMENOS in Mark 1:6 καὶ ἦν ὁ  
Ἰωάννης ἐνδεδυμένος τρίχας  
καμήλου ... KAI HN hO IWANNHS ENDEDUMENOS TRICAS KAMHLOU or the  
future perfect ESTAI DEDEMENON in Matt. 16:19 ... ὃ ἐὰν  
δήσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον  
ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ... hO EAN DHSHiS EPI THS GHS ESTAI  
DEDEMENON EN TOIS OURANOIS ...

(b) in conjunction with a finite indicative verb the participles may  
indicate time RELATIVE to the time of the indicative verb; in this  
regard the common scheme that is taught in schools is that
(1) a PRESENT participle may indicative SIMULTANEITY with the  
indicative verb with which it construes;
(2) a FUTURE participle may indicate POSTERIORITY with the indicative  
verb with which it construes;
(3) an AORIST participle may indicate PRIORITY with respect to the  
time of the indicative verb with which it construes.

(c) These rules still don't exhaust the ways in which participles may  
function; e.g. a future participle may actually function as a purpose  
clause in conjunction with a finite verb, e.g. HLQEN hO CRISTOS hWS  
ZWOPOIHSWN TOUS ANQRWPOUS ("Jesus came as one who would bring human  
beings to life" = "Jesus came in order to bring human beings to life."

In sum, participles cannot so easily be classified and pigeonholed.  
The usages I've listed above do not exhaust the range of participial  
usage. Primers are not the place to come to a thorough grasp of the  
potential range of participial usage. The better grammars devote many  
pages to that range of usage. One can study those long pages and  
ponder the examples there, but ultimately the only way to master  
participial usage is to read Greek voluminously with both eyes and  
mind wide open to the implications of participial morphology within  
each context wherein one finds participles used. I might just add,  
incidentally, that you won't learn participial usage from an  
interlinear Greek Bible.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






More information about the B-Greek mailing list