Middle and Passive Aorist and Future forms

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Dec 11 21:04:37 EST 2002


At 5:59 PM -0800 12/11/02, Harry  W. Jones wrote:
>Well BDF says, "NT authors in general preserve well the distinction between
>middle and passive." page 165 sec. 316.  So I wonder why people want to
>make complicated that which is so simple.

I certainly don't want to make complicated what is simple; what I object to
is ignoring the complexity that is there--or put it more simply, and state
what I really mean: I think that statements like that in BDF may seem valid
insofar as one IGNORES the number of so-called "deponent" verb forms that
have "middle" and "passive" morphoparadigms but are excluded from
classification as having the meanings of middles and passives. I now have a
preliminary count based on analysis of all GNT -QH- "future passives." I
had to eliminate several forms of DUNHSOMAI which were erroneously tagged
as passive in Accordance (is there anyone who thinks the verb DUNAMAI is
passive?); that made my total of -QHSOMAI KTL. forms 287; of these I deemed
167 bore probably authentic passive meaning, 120 others probably authentic
middle meaning. I think that there are some forms on both lists that could
be argued as belonging in the other; for some verbs I've distinguished
instances to divided usage. Undoubtedly there will be some real differences
of opinion over this tally, but tomorrow I'll try to find a way to put up
the entire list and point to those verbs or verb forms that seem to me most
ambivalent. But enough for one day already.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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