Elsewhere in this forum (viewtopic.php?f=44&t=3279&start=10&sid= ... ca5#p22124)
Paul Nitz wrote: I wonder, is γινωσκω ever found in the midldle - γινωσκομαι?
I don't see the need to see γινωσκω as middle in meaning but active (κοινη, common) in form. If I "know," I just know. There's no extra self-affectedness indicated or needed. If I say "γνωσομαι" a self-affected idea comes in.
In fact verbs of perception, cognition, and emotive response are subject-affected; many of them do indeed have middle forms (e.g. γεύεσθαι, αἰσθάνεσθαι, θεᾶσθαι, διανοεῖσθαι, ἡγεῖσθαι, λογίζεσθαι, φοβεῖσθαι, λυπεἰσθαι, ἥδεσθαι), but several of them have active forms, i.e. forms that are not marked for subject-affectedness. What’s perhaps more remarkable, if we reflect upon it, is that many of these verbs are construed in the same manner as transitive verbs, although they are not transitive (their subject is ordinarily an experiencer) and their apparent object is a source;there is no external object that serves as a patient altered by the action of the verb.Louis L Sorenson wrote:I've found about 25x of γινωσκομαι (via TLG), many, if not all, with ὑπό following, or used with the 'passive' idea of 'being known by someone.'
Rutger Allan in chapter 1 of The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek describes the construction of verbs of this sort in the same manner as transitive verbs thus:
I’ve been exploring questions concerning θη passives of verbs of perception, in particular the one at issue here, γνωσθῆναι, but also ὀφθῆναι, ἀκουσθῆναι, εὑρεθῆναι, and φανῆναι. I don’t think that forms of these verbs have stymied readers of the GNT, but to me, at least, they’ve raised some questions; they also seem to have given headaches to translators. We don’t ordinarily discuss translation here, but I wonder if perhaps our facile acceptance of “Biblish” — an archaic English found in older English versions of the Bible but far from today’s common usage —has blinded us to the eccentric English of standard versions of… the transitive clause structure is extended to code other situationn types. An example of this phenomenon is the way mental events (perception, cognition,, and emotion) are treated. Examples of these are 'see', 'know', 'understand', 'want', and 'love' … This extension, from the prototypical transitive event to the mental event, has a metaphorical character. Its motivation can be found in the abstract commonality that is inherent in both types of events. On the one hand, we have the transmission of energy from an active initiator (the agent) to a passive endpoint (the patient), and on the other hand, we have the concept of a metaphorical mental path leading from a more active, conscious participant (an experiencer) to a more passive object-participant. In other words, mental phenomena such as gazes and direct attention can be conceived of as paths, analogical to a physical path like that of an energy flow.
Mk 2:1 Καὶ εἰσελθὼν πάλιν εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ δι᾿ ἡμερῶν ἠκούσθη ὅτι ἐν οἴκῳ ἐστίν …
Acts 2:3 καὶ ὤφθησαν αὐτοῖς διαμεριζόμεναι γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρὸς καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐφ᾿ ἕνα ἕκαστον αὐτῶν …
A few years ago I suggested that εὑρέθη in Mt 1:18Rom 7:10 ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπέθανον καὶ εὑρέθη μοι ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ εἰς ζωήν, αὕτη εἰς θάνατον.
should be considered middle rather than passive, noting that the Schlachter 1951 German version offers “erfand sich’s” for εὑρέθη and the 1979 Édition de Genève French version offers “se trouva”; the phrase εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα could be Englished, I suggested, as “revealed/disclosed/showed herself to be pregnant”.Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις οὕτως ἦν. μνηστευθείσης τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου
The verb ὀφθῆναι construed with a dative in the sense “appear to … “ is frequent enough that readers of the GNT recognize the usage when they see it. My question is: is it really passive, or is it rather comparable to the θη imperatives such as βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστος, “each must submit to baptism” — I think this is a “permissive” middle rather than a passive.
Each of these θη forms of verbs of perception — and we could add φανῆναι, the athematic aorist of φαίνεσθαι — and it could well be argued that all the θη “passives” are actually athematic aorist “active” forms — and also the perfect passive of such verbs is regularly construed with a dative case. The construction is sometimes called a “dative of agent with passive verb” but Smyth §§1488ff. claims it is a dative of interest. Perhaps all datives of the person are datives of interest, including the “indirect object.” If we understand the fundamental sense of ἠκούσθη, εὑρέθη, ὤφθη and ἐφάνη as “became evident” or “became public knowledge” — as nearly equivalent as could be to the idiomatic ἔρχεσθαι εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν in 1Tm 2:4 (L&N§27.4, 32.17).