Presupposition and [E]motion

One of the more confusing, and therefore, misunderstood functions of participles in New Testament Greek is the upgraded function.¹ The upgraded function is related to the anarthrous (adverbial or predicate) aorist participle in the nominative that precedes the main clause.² The participle in this function refers to an action that is so connected with the action of the main verb that the two are seen as one process/action. The main characteristic of this function of the participle is that the aorist participle becomes so associated with the main verb that the “mood”³ of the participle is upgraded into the same mood of the main verb, whether an imperative, indicative, subjunctive or infinitive.⁴ Although the following examples will be discussed later with full semantic range, here they are presented as an illustration.⁵

Matthew 2:13 Ἀναχωρησάντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου φαίνεται κατ᾽ ὄναρ τῷ Ἰωσὴφ λέγων· ἐγερθεὶς παράλαβε τὸ παιδίον καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ φεῦγε εἰς Αἴγυπτον καὶ ἴσθι ἐκεῖ ἕως ἂν εἴπω σοι· μέλλει γὰρ Ἡρῴδης ζητεῖν τὸ παιδίον τοῦ ἀπολέσαι αὐτό (And having departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up [and] take the Child and His ←1 | 2→mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him”).

The nominative participle could logically be taken as some kind of temporal relationship with the main, but the occurrence of νυκτός (genitive—time during the night) in verse 14, and the urgency of the context of the situation, not only eliminates the possibility of translating ἐγερθείς as a temporal adverb like “after you have risen,” or “when you rise,” but also shows the emergency of this command.⁶

The word order or structure of the clauses can change the logical mental relation between the nominative participle and the main verb. The relation between both can be temporal. For example, Eph. 1:20 “Ἣν ἐνήργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις (… “which he exercised in Christ [when] he raised/by raising him from the dead”). It can be causal, for example, Matt. 1:19 “Ἰωσὴφ … δίκαιος ὢν …” (“Joseph … [because] he was a righteous man …”). These are just some examples, and so many other could be pointed out such as conditional participles, concessive participles, telic participles, and so on.

The verbal stems, the position of the participle in relation to the main verb and so many other features help the readers/hearers to interact with the discourse. This is only possible because the participles are semantic presuppositions that allow the readers to move on to get involved to fill some of the nuances of the discourse by relating the participles with the other parts of the clause obtaining different functions of them.

Back to the context of the situation of Matthew chapter 2, in verse 14. In verse 13, the same anarthrous nominative aorist participle preceding the main verb occurs, but now the main verb is an indicative, that is, “ὁ δὲ ἐγερθεὶς παρέλαβεν τὸ παιδίον καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς καὶ ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς Αἴγυπτον.” (“And he got up [and] took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.”). Rather than translate it as “Get up” (2:13), here the participle is upgraded to the same notion described by the indicative mood (… he got up [and] took).

The main reason why the nominative participle can be taken as an imperative in verse 13 and in the same type of structure can be taken as an indicative in verse 14 is because its semantics. As a presupposition the author/speaker is bringing the participants of the discourse, both immediate (listeners) and distant (readers) to take a part in this drama by giving priority to what is stated without losing track of the color that embellishes what is to be presupposed.

Another example that has some exegetical implication is Matthew 28:19 “πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος” (“Go, then, [and] disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”).⁷

The main verb is an aorist imperative μαθητεύσατε (disciple) which is then complemented by three anarthrous participles—one that precedes (aorist πορευθέντες [going]) and two that follow (present βαπτίζοντες⁸ [baptizing] and present διδάσκοντες [teaching]). What all these participles have in common is their semantics. They are hearers/readers oriented. The author/speaker could have chosen two coordinates clauses, but taking language as reflection, he chooses a nominative participle, and all the other choices that involve the participles in this construction contribute to how and which role the participants is to take in the reading process.

The upgraded function is more helpful in this passage to illustrate the semantic feature of the participle because its particular phenomenon that makes the reader/listener to move the participle in a very close semantic relationship with the main verb that causes the reader to take it as in the same mood or modality of the nuclear verb.

The focus for the sake of clarity is on πορευθέντες because its semantic function makes the reader to upgrade the participial clause as mentally coordinated with the main clause and having the same mood or modality of the nuclear clause. Why is that possible? It is not that the nominative participle leaves its participial nuance, rather, it where the participial semantics can be clearly seen.

For instance, there are two extreme views regarding this participle: 1) there is a tendency to render πορευθέντες as an imperative so that the great commission is not seen as a great suggestion.⁹ 2) there are others that de-emphasized πορευθέντες so strongly to the point of omission in translation. Paul Gaechter purposes this omission when he says that “ ‘Geht’ hat also keinen eigenen Akzent und ist darum nicht wörtlich zu übersetzen.”¹⁰

As will be seen, the anarthrous aorist nominative participle that precedes the main clause and has the upgraded effect is not to be weakened to a secondary, unimportant option.¹¹ On the other hand, it should not be seen as equally important, since not all actions are equal, and that is one of the most significant functions of the aorist participle. Therefore, a right understanding of the upgraded function has important exegetical implications for the interpreter, but it is of paramount importance to master its semantics in order to grasp it in its full meaning.

The thesis of our book is that factive presupposition is the semantics of all Greek participles, and the upgraded participial effect is a good study case to prove it, since its pragmatic effect illustrates the suitability of this semantic category.

Linguists typically take the idea of factive verbs to be a matter of presupposition and we will analyze it in chapter two. Here however, considering the adverbial participial clause, two main questions are asked: first, how does the participle relate to factivity? Second, what does factive presupposition means in this study?

Semantic classifications of the participle are connected to the semantic classifications of the adverbial clauses. Adverbial clauses have traditionally been based on the relation between the secondary clause and the primary clause. Recently, Hengeveld established a new semantic classification by applying four parameters.¹² In his first approach, he proposes only two parameters for the adverbial clauses, Entity Type and Factivity.¹³ Thus, this study will use the factivity parameter as it deals with the adverbial participle in Greek. Again, all Greek participles (adjectival or adverbial = adjuncts) are a grammatical factive presupposition, which is an important category to understand the participles after verbal aspect.

One of the main distinctives of factivity is its semantic characteristic of introducing a presupposition of which the embedded clause expresses a true proposition. According to Kiparsky and Kiparsky, “the speaker presupposes that the embedded clause expresses a true proposition and makes some assertion about that proposition.”¹⁴ In other words, factive predicator has the property of implicating the presupposition from which the completive proposition is factual (it expresses the fact that the completive clause is true).¹⁵ Language does not necessarily indicate what an author believes or what is true. In the case of the participle, it invites the readers to take the presupposition as such for the sake of his point at hand.

Lightfoot seems to be the first one to attempt to distinguish the participle and the infinitive on this base. He explains the supposed difference with the participle as a complement, the so-called complementary use of the participle.¹⁶ The way he distinguishes the participle from the infinitive is because the participle “is used only where the truth or actuality of the complement clause is presupposed to be true by the speaker or author.”¹⁷ He holds that in a choice between a participle and an infinitive, the choice of the participle should be made if the presupposed truth claim of the proposition is in view. He presents several passages involving infinitives and participles and concludes that the participle has a clearer “factual” presupposition than does the infinitive.¹⁸

The argument is not about facts or truth in itself, but language as a tool to establish the linguistic “reality” or the imaginative world that language can create as the reader is drawn into the discourse knowing what his/her part in that specific context is.

For example, Luke 8:46 “ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· ἥψατό μού τις, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἔγνων δύναμιν ἐξεληλυθυῖαν ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ” (“But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; for I know ←5 | 6→that power has gone out from me’ ”). The semantic uniqueness of the complements of verbs of perception is that the nominative participial clause is used when the author is trying to communicate a direct perception. It is language creating reality to set an interaction between the readers and the text or speech.