New Testament Greek
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Greek Participles
Paradigms
Description
Participles are verbal adjectives.
Parsing of Participles
Participles are parsed as Tense Voice Ptcp Gender Number Case (TVPtcpGNC).
Tense
The tense of the participle is relative to the verb that it goes with.
Present tense participles occur at the same time as the verb.
Past tense participles occur before the time of the verb.
Participle tenses are:
- Present - at the same time as the verb
- Aorist - before the time of the verb
Voice
The voice is either :
- Active - Subject is doing something (loosing)
- Middle - Subject is doing something for his own purposes (loosing for himself)
- Passive - Subject is having something done to himself (being loosed)
Participles agree in GNC with the nouns they modify.
Uses of the participle
There are several uses of the participle.
Attributive use of the participle
If the participle has a definite article before it, then it is being used as an attributive participle.
Adjectival treatment.
Who, what, which.
Substantive use of the participle
In this use, there is no subject, but the participle supplies the subject implicitly.
A definite article is present.
Predicate use of the participle
No definite article.
Adverbial use.
While, when, or after.
Genitive Absolute
In this use, the participle is in the genitive case and it stands out from the rest of the sentence.
© 1997 - Douglas Gilliland - All Rights Reserved
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