Supplement to Mounce Chs.

26-27
After this chapter, you shoul d be able to
Understand the basic grammar of the Greek participle (ch.26)
Recognize, parse, and translate present participles (ch.27)
Understand and explain the concept of relative time (27.18)
Reproduce the Master Participle Chart entries for the present active and present
mid/pass participle
Translate and parse verbs as in Exercise 27
Tips for mastering the material
Reviewing the case endings will help with the forms. Overall there is little that is
wholly new; its mostly just a combination of things youve already seen.
One way to recognize participles is to read the text aloud, I find that when Im
reading the text aloud I hear the / / sounds more easily.
Chapter 26 Wal kthrough
26.7-8 Formation
The formation of participles is fairly straightforward, the only new thing is that they
are formed with something called a participle morpheme.
26.9 Aspect
Outside of the indicative system, the time significance of the tense is less of a factor
in verbs. Aspect is the primary significance of the tense for participles. Familiarize
with the chart in Mounce covering the aspect of participles in present, aorist, and
perfect tenses. These ideas should be familiar from discussions of aspect weve
already had.
26.10 Two Basic Uses
An adverbial participle modifies the verb. An adjectival participle modifies a noun or
pronoun. The form is the same for both. Mounce will introduce the adverbial function
first in Chapters 27-28. Well deal with adjectival participles in Chapter 29.
26.15 Modifiers
Participles can take direct objects and be modified by prepositional phrases just like a
regular verb. The participle taken together with all its modifierse.g., prepositional
phrases, direct objects, adverbsis called a participial phrase.
26.18 Parsing
It will seem weird at first to combine case endings with tense and voice, but youll get
used to it before too long. J ust remember that because a participle is a verbal
adjective, it has characteristics from the verb system and the noun system.
Chapter 27 Wal kthrough
27.1-4 Summary
Mounce gives you a sort of overview at the beginning of the chapter. Its valuable
information read it carefully. If you dont understand it all just yet, thats okay, just
move forward in the chapter and things should become clearer.
27.5-6 Present Active Participle
Forming the present act part is simpletake the present tense stem (thats the same
stem that is in the lexical form you memorize), add a connecting vowel (always
omicron), the participle morpheme ( in the masc and neut, in the fem), and
then the appropriate case ending.
Notice that the participle paradigm is divided into three columns according to gender
and that each column follows a particular declension for case endings. It might be
helpful at the outset to simply know that ALL FEMININE PARTICIPLES WILL
TAKE FIRST DECLENSION CASE ENDINGS. This should come naturally to you,
as already in the noun system we have seen that the first declension endings are
usually found on feminine nouns. Another helpful hint for determining which case
endings will be used is this: THE PARTICIPLE MORPHEME WILL ALWAYS
TAKE 3
RD
DECLENSION ENDINGS. Therefore, we see here with the present active
that the masc and neut take 3
rd
declension endings.
Read all of Mounces footnotes for these charts.
27.7 Six forms
Memorizing these six forms should be enough to tip you offthat is, you should be
able to develop the rest of the paradigm if you know the nom sg and gen sg forms,
since those will tell you of any irregularities in the nom sg and will also tell you
which endings to use.
27.10 Present active participle of
The participle of looks exactly like the present active participle with the verbal
root removed. J ust take the connecting vowel, morpheme, and ending, and you have
the present participle of .
27.11-12 Present Middle/Passive Participle
Here we find a different morpheme, / . The morpheme always takes
2
nd
declension endings as you can see from the masc and neuter forms in the chart.
The feminine, as always, takes 1
st
declension endings. The morpheme will usually
stick out like a sore thumb and make these participles easy to identify.
27.13-14 Translation
When translating participles, the general rule is to begin by translating the meaning of
the verb with an -ing on the end, then, after going through the sentence and getting
a sense of the context, come back and see if you can add something like while or
because.
Aspect: If the participle is present tense, then the aspect is continuous and you should
try to bring this out in your translation, but be aware that this is often impossible to do
and thats why youre there to preach and teach your people!
Voice: J ust like any other verb, youll need to determine whether the participle is
active, middle, or passive. Deponent verbs will be deponent as a participle as well. So
the participle would be parsed as pres mid (dep) participle nom masc sg,
translate it as coming.
Adverbial participles can have a range of meaning, but we will focus on two of the
most common uses, namely, to describe the time of the action or to give the cause or
reason for the action.
27.16 Master Participle Chart
If you want to do yourself a favor right now, you could just memorize this chart and
be able to write it out. Do you want to be a J edi Master? Mem-o-rize.
27.18 Relative Time
Whereas verbs in the indicative mood will usually indicate absolute timethat is,
WHEN the action happens.
However, participles dont indicate absolute time; instead, they indicate relative
timethat is, WHEN the action happens RELATIVE TO the action of the main
verb.
The present participle, for instance, will usually describe an action that occurs at the
same time as the main verb.
If the main verb is aorist, then a present participle would simply use the same time as
the main verb. Because it indicates that the action of the participle is happening at the
same time as the action of the main verb, then youd have to translate the present
participle with past time this actually comes very naturally to English speakers
because this is how we do it too: While he was studying, he saw the light. The was
studying in Greek would be in the present tense because its happening at the same
time as the main verb (saw).
Exegesis Section
If youd like to know what other meanings an adverbial participle can have, check out
this section in Mounce. He gives examples for all eight possibilities for adverbial
participles (temporal, manner, means, cause, conditional, concessive, purpose, and
result).
Adverbial participles modify the verb, answering the question When? (temporal),
How? (means, manner), Why? (purpose, cause), etc.
o Temporal: answers the question When? May be antecedent (after doing, after
he did), contemporaneous (while doing), or subsequent (before doing, before
he does)
,
(J n 4:54)
This was now the second sign J esus did after coming from J udea to
Galilee
o Manner: answers the question, How? by +participle of emotion or attitude
(easily confused with means)
... (Acts 2:13)
But others mocking said ...
o Means: by means of (answering the question, How?); indicates the means by
which the action of a finite verb is accomplished; defines or explains the
controlling verb; usually follows the verb

(Rom 12:20)
For by doing this, you will heap coals of fire upon his head
o Cause: because (answers the question, Why?); indicates the cause or reason or
ground of the action of the finite verb; usually precedes its verb
, (Acts 9:26)
And they feared him, since they did not believe he was a disciple
o Condition: if (implies a condition on which the fulfillment of the idea
indicated by the main verb depends)

; (Lk 9:25)
For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses or
forfeits himself?
o Concession: although (implies that the state or action of the main verb is true
in spite of the state or action of the participle)
' ... , . (Gal 2:3)
But Titus ... although a Greek, was not compelled to be circumcised
o Purpose (Telic): translate like an infinitive or with the purpose of (indicates
the purpose/intent of the action of the finite verb); usually follows main verb
(Acts 8:27)
who had come to J erusalem to worship
o Result: with the result of (indicates the actual outcome or result of the action
of the main verb); can be internal (logical) or external (temporal); follows
main verb
:a.a tetei ..,.i ei .ei tcei .auei :et.i . ... (J ohn
5:18)
He was calling God his own Father, [with the result of] making
himself equal to God.