I am supposed to write, “Turning around [use middle], the army came to a halt.”
I thought the “turning around” would be a genitive absolute, since “turning around” is not the subject or an object, so I wrote, “στρεφομένου, τὸ στράτευμα ἐπέστη.”
The answer book wrote, “στρεφόμενον τὸ στράτευμα ἐπέστη.”
Two questions:
Does the gender and person of the absolute genitive need to match the subject of the rest of the sentence?
The answer book does not agree that it is a genitive absolute, but I am not finding what kind of participle the answer says it is.
“Turning around” here applies to the army, the subject of the sentence, so a genitive absolute is wrong. The participle here has to agree with the subject. You’d have a genitive absolute only if the participle did not refer to anything else in the sentence.
Do you understand this?
And you’re doing it again! Does the answer book really give τον στρατευμα?! I can’t believe it does. τον is masculine, το neuter. As you surely know.
Lukas, I asked if you understood why a genitive absolute would be wrong. If we’re to continue, and if you’re to have any hope making progress, please answer the question.
Instead of answering, you asked what kind of participle it is. You missed the point of my reply. The Greek itself does not distinguish one kind of participle from another: a participle is a participle, and it’s up to the reader to invest it with a contextually appropriate force. The categories you are working with are not built in.
If you want to understand it as conditional, that means you are understanding the sentence as saying “If it turns around, the army came to a halt.” Obviously it doesn’t mean that, so you should reconsider.
So now I ask a second question, in addition to the first: Do you understand why the participle cannot be taken as conditional?
Genitive absolute. I believe so now. At first I wondered if it could have some connection with the subject in another phrase, but now it sounds like it completely has nothing to do with it.
Conditional. I thought it might be a conditional because if the army did not turn around, it would not have halted in that direction. I guess it is not.
Well, OK, I think you’re getting closer. Now have a go at the different participle tenses in the earlier post on Unit 27 Uses of the Participle Part I, continuing that thread.
You may need to ask this question if you are translating from Greek to English so that you can understand whether the participle is used in a temporal, concessive or other sense.
If you ask this question when translating from English to Greek you are asking the wrong question. The participle form is the same in Greek irrespective of its meaning in English. Labelling constructions in this way is only helpful when translating from Greek so that you can be aware of the range of meanings that the participle can have in English.
As Mastronarde says on p. 227/8
"d. Conditional.
ἀσπίδας μεγάλας ἔχοντες ῥᾳδίως μαχούμεθα…Having large shields (If we have large shields), we’ll fight easily.
Choosing which kind of meaning to give to a circumstantial participle when translating it into English requires close attention to the context: in the proper context, the example just given could be causal: Because we have large shields, we’ll fight easily. In some cases the exact force may be uncertain."
This is I think what lies behind MWH’s lapidary “It’s whatever kind of participle you want it to be.”
But don’t I have to think about it when translating English to Greek since some Greek participles have the adverbs (or particles) καίπερ, ὡς, ὥσπερ, or ἅτε?
Ok lets go back to the original sentence here. “Turning around [use middle], the army came to a halt.”
Can you see that this is not concessive, causal or conditional? It simply means that when the army turned round it stopped. The fact that I have introduced “when” into my “explanation” indicates that it is a temporal use of the Circumstantial Participle.
Before you translate an English sentence into Greek you have to know what it means and therefore what construction to use in Greek.
some Greek participles have the adverbs (or particles) καίπερ, ὡς, ὥσπερ, or ἅτε
This is not right. It is not that some verbs require particles but some writers may choose to make explicit whether a participle is concessive or causal. As M. says “Greek participles with concessive force are often but not always marked as such by the use of the particle καίπερ preceding the participle or participial phrase.” and “Greek participles with causal force are often but not always marked as such by the use of the particle ὡς or ἅτε preceding the participle or participial phrase.” There are some complications to this and ὡς and ἅτε can be used with different force but let us lay that complication on one side.
The first step in translating from English to Greek is to make sure you understand what you are translating.
So “5. Although he made all these promises, he nevertheless did nothing.” is clearly concessive because we see “Although”. The Greek would often include “καίπερ” but it doesnt have to. “9. We believe the foreigner, although he is reporting many terrible things.” again is concessive and “καίπερ” would normally appear in the Greek translation. (But M. is also trying to teach you that when you read a Greek sentence if you do not see “καίπερ” with a participle it doesnt mean that the Greek is not a concessive circumstantial participle.)
It seems to me that you are confusing two things how to translate a participle you read in greek and how you translate an English sentence into Greek. A Greek participle has to be interpreted from the context to arrive at a possible English meaning. It might be obvious if there is a particle, in its absence you need to think. When translating into Greek you need to decide if the English implies concession etc and then whether you are going to make it explicit. My advice is that you always as a beginner use a particle.