Participles: introduction

In Module 1, we looked at an essential kind of verbal expression, the clause. Recall that every clause has a finite verb (expressed or implied), and that explicit subjects of finite verbs are in the nominative case.

A second essential kind of verbal expression in Greek is the participle. Participles may have exactly the same kinds of objects or predicates as finite verb forms, depending on whether the verb transitive, intransitive, or a linking verb. The relation of the participle to the subject of the verbal action is expressed differently, however. The participle is always linked to a noun or pronoun in the clause; this noun or pronoun functions as the subject of the participle’s action.

This means that participles can never stand alone as a verbal expression: they express an additional verbal idea, attached to another word in the clause. In English, we most commonly express this kind of dependent verbal expression using a subordinate clause – that is, a clause with its own finite verb form, but one that cannot stand by itself as a complete sentence. Consider this English sentence from Caroline Falkner’s translation of Lysias 1:

“The person who is disgracing you and your wife happens to be our mutual enemy.”

We have two finite verbs (“is disgracing” and “happens to be”), and therefore two clauses. The clause “The person happens to be our mutual enemy” is a perfectly coherent English sentence, but the clause “who is disgracing you and your wife” is not.

In module 4, we’ll see that, like English, Greek can express subordinate ideas like this using subordinate clauses, but even more frequently Greek prefers a participle. In this passage, for example, Lysias uses a participle to express the verbal idea in Falkner’s phrase “who is disgracing you and your wife.”

To clarify this subordinate structure, we will regular format texts using indentation to show subordinated constructions.

The person

who is disgracing you and your wife

happens to be our mutual enemy.

Although English has some verb forms we refer to as “participles,” the most important difference conceptual difference between them and Greek participles is that Greek participles express a verbal expression comparable to an English subordinate clause.

⚠️ This means you will normally use an English subordinate clause to express the meaning of a Greek verbal expression with a participle.

Identifying and forming participles

Like finite verb forms, the form of participles indicate the tense and voice of the verbal action. Like adjectives, they agree in gender, case and number with a substantive functioning as the subject of the verbal action. This is why the ancient Greek grammatical term for “participle,” is μετοχή, literally “a sharing:” participles share some of the properties of a finite verb (tense, voice), and some of the properties of an adjective (gender, case, number). When you fully identify the form of a participle therefore you should give its tense, voice, gender, case and number.

In this module, we will use two tenses of the participle: the aorist participle, and the present participle. They differ in meaning in much the same way that the aspect of the aorist and the imperfect tense of finite verbs differ: the aorist participle views the verbal action as a single, completed whole; the present participle, like the finite forms of the imperfect tense, sees the action as repeated, habitual, incomplete or in some other way not a single, whole action.

We’ll first see how to form the aorist and present participles in all three voices, then will turn to two kinds of verbal expression: the attributive participle to describe or identify a particular noun or prounoun, and the circumstantial participle to qualify the action of the finite verb with a subordinate verbal idea.