What is the opposite of a deponent?

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Sun Dec 5 20:04:22 EST 1999


To: the participants of the B-Greek list,

The Greek verb AGALLIAOMAI appears to have been a Hellenistic coinage, a 
LXX neologism. It occurs 74 times in the LXX (according to LEH), as what is 
sometimes called a "deponent" verb. It also occurs 11 times in the NT, 
twice in the active voice (Lk 1:47 & Rev 19:7; cf. 1 Pt 1:8vl). Thus it 
seems that this verb was coined as a "deponent" verb, but by the first 
century it had evolved to the place where it could also be used with the 
active voice. The original notion of a "deponent" was to describe those 
verbs which had "lay aside" the active forms. Here we have an example of a 
verb which has picked up the active forms. So I wonder, what is the 
opposite for deponent? Could we call AGALLIAW a "reponent" verb?

I'll also note that although AGALLIAW has active forms in the NT, BAGD 
classifies the rest of them as deponents. Leaving aside whether or not 
"deponent" is a meaningful grammatical category, I wonder are there other 
(so called) "deponent" verbs which in the NT have picked up active forms?

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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