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20.142 Nuances of the Adverbial Participles

As mentioned previously, all participles are adjectives and function as adjectives in every sentence in which they appear. A participle either modifies a noun (sometimes the unexpressed noun which is the subject of a verb), and sometimes a participle is a substantive adjective, acting as if it were a noun itself. Because participles function as adjectives, you must always be able to identify the gender, number, and case of the participle (adverbs are something completely different from adjectives, because in Greek adverbs do not have gender or number or case).

When Croy takes about "adverbial participles" he is referring to some issues that arise in English translation, when you have to decide about the relationship between a participle and the main verb within a sentence. What Croy describes as "nuances" in section 142 are nuances of English translation. They have nothing to do with Greek grammar, and you are not responsible for the vocabulary he introduces to describe these English translation strategies (time, manner, means, cause, condition, concessive).

Later on, if you decide you want to translate Greek into English, you will have to think a lot about translation styles and strategies. For the purposes of this class, however, your task is to understand the grammar of the Greek participle, and what that participle means in Greek.

So make sure you look over the examples that Croy provides here and see if you can understand the differences in English translation that he is describing. It is useful information. When you read the Practice Sentences, however, please focus on the grammar of the sentences and do not get too concerned about the nuances of the English translation. If you understand the way the Greek words function in each sentence and what they mean, that is great! Coming up with an English translation that is able to reflect the meaning of the Greek is a different task entirely. For right now, just making sure you understand the meaning of the Greek should be your main goal.


Biblical Greek Online. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. Page last updated: April 9, 2005 8:06 PM


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