perfect participles

Grammar questions which are not related to any specific text.
Jesse Goulet
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perfect participles

Post by Jesse Goulet »

I'm a bit confused, I think, about the relative time of the perfect participle. Mounce only says its time is the same as its indicative use (completed action with effects still ongoing), but this says nothing about its relative time. Dana-Mantey and Wallace say it denotes action prior to the time of its verb that it modifies, just as the aorist does, but this doesn't address the completed action, ongoing effects element of them.

So if I put these elements together, does the perfect participle indicate action that was completed before the time of its verb, with its effect still ongoing at the time of the verb?
David Lim
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Re: perfect participles

Post by David Lim »

Jesse Goulet wrote:I'm a bit confused, I think, about the relative time of the perfect participle. Mounce only says its time is the same as its indicative use (completed action with effects still ongoing), but this says nothing about its relative time. Dana-Mantey and Wallace say it denotes action prior to the time of its verb that it modifies, just as the aorist does, but this doesn't address the completed action, ongoing effects element of them.

So if I put these elements together, does the perfect participle indicate action that was completed before the time of its verb, with its effect still ongoing at the time of the verb?
If you are referring to a participle used adverbially, my simple answer is yes, the event is past with respect to the main verb and results in a present state with respect to the main verb. And I think we don't really have a way to convey the difference between the aorist and perfect adverbial participles in English. The nearest to either seems to be the same "having done something, ..." The only examples of the active perfect adverbial participle in the new testament are Luke 1:3, John 4:6,45, 6:19, 7:15, 12:37, 13:2, 18:18, Acts 16:24,34, 25:7, Eph 4:19, 1 Pet 1:22, 2 Pet 2:6, according to my search, but usually the aorist participle and not the perfect participle is used. The passive perfect participles are more common, such as in Matt 27:17, Luke 6:40, 11:21, 16:20, 18:14. Were you referring to any particular instance?
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Yes, I think a particular example would clarify the discussion.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Jesse Goulet
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Jesse Goulet »

No example in particular. I'm just trying to get the generic jist of how its relative time works when it's being used adverbially.
Jason Hare
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Jason Hare »

Jesse Goulet wrote:No example in particular. I'm just trying to get the generic jist of how its relative time works when it's being used adverbially.
It's relative time would be previous to the main verb, of course. What other time do you think it could take on?
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cwconrad
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Re: perfect participles

Post by cwconrad »

One fact that should be born in mind, since we're talking about perfect participles without indicating any particular instances, is that the perfect participle often functions with an auxiliary in a periphrastic construction that is equivalent to a finite verb, e.g.


Eph. 2:8 Τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ πίστεως = σέσῳσθε (= pf. indic.)

Μκ. 1:6 καὶ ἦν ὁ Ἰωάννης ἐνδεδυμένος τρίχας καμήλου = ἐνεδέδυτο (= plupf. indic.)
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jesse Goulet
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Jesse Goulet »

Jason Hare wrote:
Jesse Goulet wrote:No example in particular. I'm just trying to get the generic jist of how its relative time works when it's being used adverbially.
It's relative time would be previous to the main verb, of course. What other time do you think it could take on?
I meant the element about the continuing effect of the action. With perfect indicatives, the ongoing action is felt at the present time of the author. But for perfect participles, is the ongoing effect felt at the time of its head verb, or the author, or both?
David Lim
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Re: perfect participles

Post by David Lim »

Jesse Goulet wrote:
Jason Hare wrote:
Jesse Goulet wrote:No example in particular. I'm just trying to get the generic jist of how its relative time works when it's being used adverbially.
It's relative time would be previous to the main verb, of course. What other time do you think it could take on?
I meant the element about the continuing effect of the action. With perfect indicatives, the ongoing action is felt at the present time of the author. But for perfect participles, is the ongoing effect felt at the time of its head verb, or the author, or both?
With perfect indicatives, the effect of the past event is "felt" by the subject and the direct object (if any) at their "present time"; it is not an ongoing action nor is it "felt" by the author. Likewise for adverbial perfect participles, the effect of the past event describes the state of the subject and object in which the main verb occurs, not the state of the author. I think that the examples I mentioned show that. (I accidentally included Acts 25:7 in which the perfect participle is not an adverbial.)
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Maximusinthehouse
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Maximusinthehouse »

Question: So Colossians 2:7 Rooted is Perf, pass,participle..this is a Past Action Completed so the participle refers to?
Jason Hare
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Re: perfect participles

Post by Jason Hare »

Maximusinthehouse wrote: October 24th, 2024, 9:27 am Question: So Colossians 2:7 Rooted is Perf, pass,participle..this is a Past Action Completed so the participle refers to?
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As it is, “rooted” is not necessarily a perfect passive participle. It’s an English word. The Greek word there is ἐρριζωμένοι (errizōménoi). It’s important to relate to Greek as a language on its own terms, and using an English gloss (rough translation) to refer to a Greek word and mapping Greek grammatical terms to English words is just leaving the Greek out completely. Our goal here is perfecting our knowledge of the Greek language, so we must use Greek to do that. Are you currently engaged in learning Greek?

Ἐρριζωμένοι (errizōménoi) is indeed a perfect middle-passive participle masculine nominative/vocative plural. The perfect participle looks generally at something that has been accomplished in the past and has results in the present. These people experienced the rooting earlier on and were then in the state of having their roots already put in place. Perfect participles are used quite a bit, and we shouldn’t overreach when examining a grammatical structure. It’s used the same way that we do in English, when we say that someone is “retired,” meaning that they entered retirement in the past and remain in a state of unemployment, or that they are “married,” meaning that someone married them in the past and they remain in the state of matrimony. Greek is not a mystical language. It’s just a language, and our goal here is to learn its functions and features, not to impute mystical sense where it isn’t naturally present. Try to be careful with that kind of thing, if that is the direction you were leaning.
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