Participles are essentially verbal adjectives. They associate verbal ideas with nouns/pronouns. They have the same characteristics as both verbs and adjectives, namely: aspect, tense, voice, gender, number and case. E.g. present participle for the contract verb δοκέω:
Example 1: the man who is thinking -> ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ δοκῶν
Example 2: thinking this thing, the man speaks -> δοκῶν τοῦτο ὁ ἄνθρωπος λέγει
Koine has present, aorist, perfect and future participles but the future participle is rarely used. The most commonly used are present and aorist. Each tense has an associated aspect:
[table id=participle-tense-aspect /]
Participles mainly employ third and second declension endings and some use first declension endings. Similar to adjectives, we can describe a participle form by it’s masculine/feminine/neuter nominative/genitive forms alone. For that reason, we don’t need to list out the entire declension, since they follow the aforementioned declension forms.
[table id=participle-suffixes /]
Group 1
- Present active participle for verbs like λύω or φιλέω -> λύων or φιλῶν (loosing or loving)
- 2nd aorist active participle for verbs like ἔβαλον -> βάλλων (having thrown)
- Present active participle of εἰμί -> ὤν (being)
Group 2
- First aorist active participle of verbs. ἔγραψα -> γράψας (having written)
Group 3
- 1st aorist passive participle of verbs like λύω -> λυθείς (having been loosed)
- 2nd aorist passive participle of verbs like γράφω -> γραφείς (having been written)
Group 4
- Perfect active participle of verbs. λύω -> λελυκώς (having loosed)
Group 5
- Present middle and passive participle. λύω -> λυόμενος (loosing oneself or being loosed)
- First aorist middle participle. λύω -> λυσάμενος (having loosed oneself)
- Perfect middle and passive participle. λύω -> λελυμένος (having loosed oneself or having been loosed)
- Second aorist middle participle. βάλλω -> βαλόμενος (having thrown oneself)
Notes
- All feminine forms follow 1st declension
- All active masculine and neuter participles follow 3rd declension
- All middle and passive masculine and neuter forms follow 2nd declension
Noematos 