Uses of the Participle
Introduction
Here’s a guide to the default translation of participles. However, a participle’s translation partly or largely depends on the construction. See below for details.
PROGRESSIVE
| λύων releasing | λυόμενος releasing oneself* | λυόμενος being released |
* There are several ways to translate the middle. For the sake of example, here we use the reflexive.
FUTURE
| λύσων (being) about to release* | λυσόμενος (being) about to release oneself* | λυθησόμενος (being) about to be released* |
* English does not have a future participle, so there’s not a good simple way to translate one. “(Being) about to” generally works, but it is unsatisfactory. After all, the translation of the future participle in Greek depends largely on the construction in which it appears.
AORIST
| λύξας having released | λυσάμενος having released oneself | λυθείς having been released |
PERFECT
| λελυκώς having released* | λελυμένος having released oneself* | λελυμένος having been released* |
* The perfect participle is translated the same way as the aorist participle in English. This is because English doesn’t distinguish between the two aspects morphologically, so we only have the one option for the two. The difference is semantic: the aorist participle emphasizes the event at the moment it happened, whereas the perfect participle emphasizes the completed state of that event in the present time.
Intermediate
Examples in this lesson all come from Herodotus 6.107. See here for the passage presented for use in the classroom.
Attributive Participle
The attributive participle is a participle that functions simply as an adjective. As such, it appears within the article-noun pair, so article-participle-noun. Since the participle often forms a phrase of its own, more often we find noun or article-noun and article-participle separately:
| τῆς παροιχομένης νυκτὸς ὄψιν εἶδε ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ. |
| During the past night he saw an image in his sleep. |
| Ἱππίης ὁ κατελθὼν ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας ἕνα τῶν ὀδόντων ἐκβάλλει. |
| Hippias, the one having returned to Athens, tosses out one of his teeth. |
In this instance, a more fluid translation renders the attributive participle as a relative clause:
| Hippias, who returned to Athens, tosses out one of his teeth. |
Compare the predicate use of the participle, below, when the participle appears outside of the article-noun pair.
Substantive Participle
The substantive participle is a participle used as a noun:
| ὁ τῇ μητρὶ τῇ ἑωυτοῦ συνευνασάμενος τελευτήσει ἐν τῇ ἑωυτοῦ γηραιός. |
| The one having slept with his mother will die as an old man in his motherland. |
Again, we should feel free to render the participle phrase as a relative clause in English:
| The one who slept with his mother will die as an old man in his motherland. |
Supplementary Participle
The meaning of some verbs is incomplete and needs to be filled out by a supplementary participle:
| Ἱππίης ὄψιν ἰδὼν ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ τυγχάνω ἐν ᾗ συν τῇ μητρὶ συνευνήθη. |
| Hippias happens to have seen an image in his sleep in which he slept with his mother. |
When English supplements a verb like “happens,” it uses a complementary infinitive. Greek, however, uses a participle. The Greek participle should be translated into English as an infinitive, as above.
The supplementary participle can also be used with commands. When we order someone to do two things in Greek, the first command appears as a participle. See here for details.
Future Participle of Purpose
A future participle, often with ὡς, expresses purpose:
| τοὺς δὲ βαρβάρους ἡγέετο Ἱππίης ἐς τὸν Μαραθῶνα ὡς ἐκβησόμενος ἐς τὴν ἑωυτοῦ γῆν. |
| And Hippias led the barbarians to Marathon so that he could go ashore onto his homeland. |
The Participle in Predicate Position
When the participle is outside of the article-noun pair, it is in predicate position. The predicate use of the participle brings to fore the verbal sense of the participle:
| ἐκβάντας τε ἐς γῆν τοὺς βαρβάρους διέτασσε. |
| And he marshaled the barbarians having disembarked onto land. |
| And he marshaled the barbarians after they disembarked onto land. |
Often it is wise to translate this participle with a subordinate clause in your English translation, as above. How exactly you do so depends on the relation of the participle to the main statement it accompanies. It may express a temporal, circumstantial, causal, concessive, or conditional relationship, on which see below.
Predicate: Temporal Participle
When the predicate participle is used temporally, it expresses a purely temporal relationship with the main statement:
Predicate: Circumstantial Participle
The circumstantial participle describes the context in which the main statement occurs:
Predicate: Causal Participle
When the predicate participle explains why the main statement occurs, it is called causal. In our translation, we use “because” or “since”:
Predicate: Concessive Participle
Predicate: Conditional Participle
Participle in Genitive Absolute
Participle in Accusative Absolute
Participle in Indirect Statement
When a verb of knowing, perceiving, showing, or learning introduces an indirect statement, the indirect statement will usually use a participle:
reading morphologically 