Hi, Helleno File,
are the perfect participles κατηλειμμένος etc in common useage in the spoken language.
Just an addition to the examples offered by Αγγελος, regarding the passive participle ειλημμένος: ειλημμένη απόφαση (=decision already made)
One of my "strange participles" is ο προϊστάμενος - head or person in charge, principal. Why is it η προϊσταμένη?
I have the impression that the answer to the question “Why is it η προϊσταμένη?”, (although there has been an explanation that the stress shifts to the penultimate when the ending is long, as in the feminine προϊσταμέν
η and all similar participles), could receive a little more attention and elaboration. But what does a “long” ending mean?
If the matter of the long ending in ancient Greek words is of any interest, let me say the following: The phonetics of ancient Greek was such that the accent, which was a (higher) pitch accent and not a (dynamic) stress accent, couldn’t come more than three syllables from the end of the word, regardless of the number of its syllables, and if the last syllable had a long vowel, the accent could’t come on the antepenultimate syllable; thus, regarding the masculine participle Ο ΠΡΟ-Ι-
ΣΤΑ-ΜΕ-ΝΟΣ the pitch accent would come on the antepenultimate
ΣΤΑ, while in the feminine ΠΡΟ-Ι-ΣΤΑ-
ΜΕ-ΝΗ it would come on the penultimate
ΜΕ. But this shift to the penultimate, although an outward one, was not visible in writing, as the writing in classical Greek was only in upper case letters, with no gaps between the words and there were no accent marks. Nevertheless, the accentuation continued to be on the third syllable from the right, that is on the antepenultimate. Why did this happen? Because the vowel
Η (eta) in the ending of the feminine participle was a “long” one and this means it was pronounced as a long or double
Ε,
viz the pronunciation of the word ΠΡΟ-Ι-ΣΤΑ-
ΜΕ-ΝΗ was ΠΡΟ-Ι-ΣΤΑ-
ΜΕ-ΝΕ-Ε. Αs it is understood, the pitch accent could not remain οn the syllable
ΣΤΑ, as in the masculine participle, and had to move to the penultimate, because it couldn’t be on the fourth syllable from the right, against the inborn law of Greek (classical and modern) phonetics. The same applies to the masculine participle ΠΡΟ-Ι-
ΣΤΑ-ΜΕ-ΝΟΣ. When used in the genitive case ΠΡΟ-Ι-ΣΤΑ-ΜΕ-ΝΟΥ, which had a “long” ending
ΟΥ, it was pronounced as ΠΡΟ-Ι-ΣΤΑ-
ΜΕ-ΝΟ-Ü and the accent had to move from
ΣΤΑ to
ΜΕ, that is from the antepenultimate to the penultimate syllable for the same reason as above. Of course, the above are just examples of the accentuation of all similar participles or nouns.
In the time of the Hellenistic Greek (Koine Greek), when major phonological changes in the Greek language took place, including the loss of the ancient distinction between long and short vowels, and more specifically from the second century BC onwards, the sound of the ETA (H) dropped from EE to a simple I (=i), and the Ancient Greek pitch accent was replaced by a stress accent. But, regardless of these changes, the stress continued falling on the same syllables. Now, in Modern Greek one can see and hear, can write and say both προϊστάμενη and προϊσταμένη (if used as an adjective), e.g. η προϊ
στάμενη/προϊστα
μένη αρχή (=supervising authority), but only προϊστα
μένη (=woman in charge, if used as a noun), e.g. head-nurse in a hospital department. That’s why, although in the nominative case we say Βασίλισσα, we say Λεωφόρος Βασι
λίσσης (and not Βασίλισσης) Όλγας (=Queen Olga Avenue) when using the archaic-relic genitive.
My apologies for the length of my post.
. There is no mention of present participles in Horton et al's Essential Greek Grammar.
