Preliminary Recommendations

Gender and Case

In the Modern Greek linguistic system, only two participial forms are recognised:

1. The active present participle, ending in `-ontas', which functions as an adverb; and
2. The passive participle of the present perfect tense, ending in `-menos', `-meny' or `-meno', which is considered to be a verbal adjective.

In addition to these two forms, a new form has been added in recent years to the linguistic system of Modern Greek (probably, as a result of foreign language influence), namely:

1. The active participle of the present perfect tense, formed periphrastically by the active present participle of the auxiliary verb `ehontas' and the infinitival form of the verb.

Furthermore, there remain in Modern Greek certain participial forms from the Ancient Greek linguistic system. These forms, which were all verbal-adjectival types, are the following:

1. The participle of the active present tense, ending in `-wn', `-ousa and `-on'; `-wn', `-wsa' and `-wn'; or `-wn', `-ousa' and `-oun';
2. The participle of the passive present tense, ending in `-omenos', `-omeny' and `-omeno';
3. The participle of the active past perfective tense, ending in `-as', `-asa' and `-an';
4. The participle of the active past perfective tense, ending in `-wn', `- ousa' and `-on'; and
5. The participle of the passive past perfective tense, ending in `-eis', `-eisa' and `-en'.

These forms have gradually lost their link to the verb they have been derived from and have come to be considered, in the majority of cases, adjectives and, sometimes, nouns, depending on their function. However, very recently, a tendency to re-use them as verbal types and even to produce new participles of these forms is observed in certain texts, mainly of the administrative type. Thus, in most of the modern theoretical grammars, these participial forms are included under the categories of adjectives and nouns, although they recognise their origins from the verbal system.

In the present form of the ILSP lexicon, we have kept this distinction, i.e. the only types that are considered participles are the first two, i.e. the one for the active present tense and the one for the passive past perfect. This distinction is, however, under review; still, a future category change of participles does not affect the status of the current proposal for a morphosyntactic description of the linguistic system of Greek, given that the values of the present scheme are sufficient to describe them in either way.

The features of Gender and Case are used for the characterisation of passive past perfective participles, which are adjectival types of the verb. As adjectives, they agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify. Therefore, apart from the values masc-fem and common, which do not apply here, all values are those presented in the section of nouns, and shown in the following table, which shows also the values that other participial forms would take if they were included under this category.

For all other verbal forms (finite forms, infinitive and active present participle), these features are left unspecified.

Attribute Value Gr. example Gr. tag

Gender masculine eisaghmenos VbNfPpPa00SgMa

(eisaghwn) (VbNfPpPr00SgMa)

(eisaghomenos) (VbNfPpPr00Sg Ma)

(energhysas) (VbNfPpPa00Sg Ma)

(eisahtheis) (VbNfPpPa00Sg Ma)

(pathwn) (VbNfPpPa00SgMa)

feminine eisaghmeny VbNfPpPa00SgFe

(eisaghousa) (VbNfPpPr00Sg Fe)

(eisaghomeny) (VbNfPpPr00Sg Fe)

(energhysasa) (VbNfPpPa00Sg Fe)

(eisahtheisa) (VbNfPpPa00Sg Fe)

(pathousa) (VbNfPpPa00SgFe)

neuter eisaghmeno VbNfPpPa00SgNe

(eisaghon) (VbNfPpPr00SgNe)

(eisaghomeno) (VbNfPpPr00Sg Ne)

(energhysan) (VbNfPpPa00Sg Ne)

(eisahthen) (VbNfPpPa00SgNe)

(pathon) (VbNfPpPa00SgNe)

Attribute Value Gr. example Gr. tag

Case nom eisaghmenos VbNfPpPa00SgMaNm

gen eisaghmenou VbNfPpPa00SgMa Ge

acc eisaghmeno VbNfPpPa00SgMa Ac

l-spec voc eisaghmene VbNfPpPa00SgMaVo