The Ancient Greek participle is a non-finite nominal verb form declined for gender, number and case (thus, it is a verbal adjective) and has many functions in Ancient Greek. It can be active, middle or passive and can be used in the present, future, aorist and perfect tense; these tenses normally represent not absolute time but only time relative to the main verb of the sentence. In general, as it shows no personal endings, its main use is to express an action or situation that accompanies the action or situation expressed by the main verb.
Terminology
The Greek grammarians called a participle a μετοχή 'participation, share', because it shares the properties of a verb and of an adjective. Latin calqued the word as participium, from which English gets participle.
Uses of the participle
Three main syntactic uses of the participle can be distinguished: (a) the participle as a modifier of a noun (attributive participle) (b) the participle used as an obligatory argument of a verb (supplementary participle), (c) the participle as an adverbial satellite of a verbal predicate (circumstantial or adverbial participle).
The attributive participle
The attributive participle is often, though not always, used with the article (which can be either generic or particular); it functions as a common adjective, it can be in every tense stem, and it is on a par with – and thus often translated as – a relative clause. It shows agreement with a noun, present or implied, in a sentence, and can be assigned any syntactic role an adjective can hold.
The man who spoke this opinion was Pisander.
Like any adjective it can be used substantively (or be nominalized) by omission of an understood noun (easily recoverable from the context):
Whoever (= any man or soldier who) wants to go home…
He came back bringing the (man/one) who was going to give the poison.
Many participles of this sort are equivalent to – and thus translated as – nouns, e.g.: = the person put on exile, or the person accused, i.e. the exile, or the defendant = the thing that is going to happen, i.e. the future = the person that steals, i.e. the thief
An adverbial notion may be inherent in an attributive participle; the usual notions are those of purpose or consequence (in the future tense), and condition (in all tense stems but the future, with negative particle μή). The following example has a future participle indicating purpose:
They have publicly enacted this specific law to prevent these things.
The supplementary participle
The supplementary participle is always without the article (predicative position of the participle is employed) and can be in any tense stem. This participle has two major uses: (1) in indirect discourse, and (2) not in indirect discourse.
The supplementary participle in indirect statements
When in this use, the participle corresponds to a particular tense and mood of a simple indicative of any tense, and, if accompanied by the particle ἄν, to potential optative or potential indicative. Verbs taking such a participial clause as an object complement are:
i) Verbs of perceiving, knowing, discovering, remembering and so on such as: "see that", "hear that", "perceive, notice that", "come to know, perceive, realize that", "not to know", "find (on arrival) that", "find that", "catch, detect someone doing something" (passive: ), "learn, know that", "know that", "know (as a witness), or be conscious that", "understand that", "consider that" "remember that", "forget that".
ii) Verbs of presentation, i.e. verbs meaning '"announce, show, prove"' such as: "report that", (ἀπο-, ἐπι-) "show, explain, point out that", "prove that".
I assume that you agree, since you don’t give any reply.
And I know too that in the past they were afraid to be seen in possession of gold.
In many of the above cases this participle is interchangeable with a clause introduced by ὅτι or ὡς, for example:
For who does not know that they (the Thebans) have portioned out our land for grazing and have razed our city to the ground?
The following case constructions are available for such a supplementary participle:
a. The logical "subject" of the participle and the grammatical subject of the governing verb are coreferential, the participle being put in the nominative case, agreeing with it (we are dealing with a so-called nominative plus participle construction; see also nominative and infinitive):
They see [that they are in no position to get the upper hand]. Direct form: We are in no position to get the upper hand.