Future Passives categorized (correction)

Peter Kirk prkirk at pmbx.net
Mon Dec 16 06:16:05 EST 2002


Dear Carl,

Thank you for clarifying your view of the "divine passive". I am
learning from this!

I'm sorry if I read the wrong paper, but I understood that this was the
one recommended e.g. by Iver Larsen on 10 December as "Carl's paper
which can be downloaded in pdf form from www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs".
The paper I found was the one relating to voice. Were Iver's
instructions ambiguous, or incorrect?

As for the rest of my posting: First one correction, I should have
written ELUQH not LUQH - 3rd person singular intended. I have rather
limited linguistic training and a knowledge, varying from good to rather
slight, of several relevant languages. But I am basing a lot of what I
wrote on my own instincts rather than on others' studies. On the other
hand, I am not very impressed by the studies I have seen, for example
one which I found at your website from an Austrian author which starts
with a demonstrable untruth, something like "All Indo-European languages
are accusative languages". Has the author never heard of Baluch and many
other Indo-Iranian languages which are well known to be ergative in the
past tense? The limitations of such studies makes me very sceptical
about what others have written on such subjects. One cannot reconstruct
Indo-European from just Latin and Greek with a hint of Germanic.

I didn't make up the idea that LUESAI is derived from something like
LUEIS SE - or more accurately no doubt from a now lost archaic form of
LUEIS SE. I remember learning this as more or less accepted truth. In
fact this derivation could be very early, as a comparison of personal
endings in such distantly related languages as Greek, Russian and
Persian shows an astonishing stability in these endings. But if it
actually went back to proto-IE I would expect to see it reflected in
more IE languages.

But what I wrote about past participles is indeed derived from my own
observations rather than second hand from alleged authorities. You are
of course right that -QEIS is -QE-NT-S, with the -NT clearly being an
active participial ending of proto-IE origin (Latin -nt, German -nd,
Persian -nd, English -ng). And none of the other languages combine the
-d/-t passive participle ending with the -nd/-nt active participle
ending. This observation requires some adjustments to my hypothesis. In
fact I note that Greek, just like Latin and Russian, has adjectives
ending in -t-os which are semantically equivalent to past passive (or
intransitive active) participles. Some examples found from a quick
dictionary search: AGAPHTOS, AKAQARTOS and many others with privative
A(N)-, ARESTOS, GENNHTOS, GNWSTOS, GRAPTOS, DIDAKTOS, DUNATOS
(intransitive active), etc etc; these adjectives seem to be the remains
of a once general paradigm, and GRAPTOS is still recognisably close to
its English cognate via proto-IE "(en)graved". So I would revise my
hypothesis to suggest that for example EGENNHQH is derived from
E-GENNHT(OS)-EI, GENNHQHSOMAI from GENNHT(OS)-ESOMAI. Of course we have
to explain how -T-E- or -TOS-E- became -QH-. But the similarity does
seem close enough for this hypothesis to be given serious consideration.
But I agree that a close look at early Greek might provide relevant
evidence.

You will note that I have provided an explanation for the indeed
remarkable fact that the aorist "passive" has active endings but the
future "passive" has middle ones - they follow the analogous behaviour
of the verb EIMI in the present and future. And I agree with your
parsing of ELUQHS but am interested in the derivation of the -QH-
morpheme which you describe as "later emerging". Emerging from what? I
would suggest from a periphrastic tense, which might be attested in
early Greek inscriptions, but might not be e.g. because of origins in an
unwritten dialect.

Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl W. Conrad [mailto:cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu]
> Sent: 16 December 2002 00:54
> To: Peter Kirk
> Cc: Biblical Greek
> Subject: [b-greek] Re: Future Passives categorized (correction)
> 
> At 4:37 PM +1100 12/15/02, Peter Kirk wrote:
> >Thank you, Carl. The corrected version is much more satisfactory. I
> >agree that careful interpretation of each example is required. I
would
> >certainly not want to argue that "passive" forms of EGEIRW
necessarily
> >imply divine agency as part of the sense (and come to theological
> >conclusions from that), but I would argue that the possibility that
> >divine agency is in view, in many cases, makes it unsafe to conclude
> >that these cannot be passives.
> >
> >I have been taught that many of the verbs which I have traditionally
> >understood as passive are a "divine passive", a special Jewish
> >periphrastic idiom to avoid expressing the divine agent. For example,
> >that PARAKLHQHSONTAI and CORTASQHSONTAI in Matthew 5:4,6 (the latter
on
> >your list of middle senses, the former an uncontested passive) means
> >that God will comfort the mourners and satisfy the hungry and
thirsty. I
> >wonder, in view of this discussion, do you consider the "divine
passive"
> >to be a myth?
> 
> Well, for one thing, I really don't like this usage of "myth,"
although I
> know it's quite conventional; having taught mythology for the last
years
> of
> my teaching career, I prefer to think of a myth as a story that, while
not
> necessarily historically or scientifically true, nevertheless gives
> expression to profound truth.
> 
> As for the "divine passive," I am extremely skeptical; while it may
well
> be
> Jewish idiom, I am inclined to think that it may be a "cop out" when
> applied almost casually to supposed passive forms in the GNT. I don't
> doubt
> that a feature of the mind-set  operant in NT writers is the
conviction
> that God's will underlies events in general; what I doubt is that
> instances
> of a middle-passive verb in the GNT without an explicit indication of
an
> agent should automatically be assumed to be divinely caused--or so
> directly
> caused that participants in events are fundamentally puppets on a
string.
> More to the point, I think that a middle-passive verb form may more
often
> indicate that the speaker/writer is not concerned with agency or cause
but
> with the fact of the occurrence, and that when the instrument or
agency
> behind the occurrence is important to the speaker or writer, it is
usually,
> not necessarily always, indicated by the appropriate construction.
> 
> >I also want to make some comments relating to your paper
VoiceCorr.pdf
> >which I downloaded.
> 
> Just a cautionary note here. The "VoiceCorr.pdf" is an older
compilation
> of
> my initial 1997 posting on these matters along with a transcript of
some
> of
> the follow-up correspondence on the list. I probably should have
removed
> it
> from my web documents because it really has been superceded by the
> recently-issued "NewObsAncGrkVc.pdf" wherein I have expanded and
attempted
> to document my argument from significant authorities and arguments
based
> upon Greek texts. I'd like to think that "New Observations" is a bit
> further along than what I wrote and compiled in "Voice
Correspondence."
> 
>  This is a very helpful article. But I do have some
> >doubts about your arguments from Indo-European languages. Don't
forget
> >that this group is much wider than Romance, Germanic and Greek. I
have
> >the advantages of a good knowledge of Russian and some of Persian,
sadly
> >not of Indian languages or other smaller groups. From this, I would
> >agree that use of reflexives as passives is widespread - also found
in
> >Russian, but interestingly only in the imperfective - but these are
> >clearly recent (post-classical in Romance languages) secondary
> >formations, and so not evidence that there was a proto-IE
morphological
> >category corresponding to the middle voice. (I don't think we can
argue
> >that Romance use of the reflexive for passive is based on some kind
of
> >folk memory of original IE morphology which had been lost for the
> >centuries when Latin was spoken.) And the Greek middle also bears the
> >hallmarks of being secondary, though much more ancient, i.e. LUOMAI,
> >LUESAI (LUHi) were very likely originally LUW EME, LUEIS SE etc. So,
I
> >wonder, is there real evidence for an Indo-European middle?
> 
> What you say here makes me think it probably is "Voice Correspondence"
> that
> you read rather than my more recent paper. Let me say that I know a
few
> languages as you do--I've taught Greek, Latin, German, and French and
I
> can
> read a couple others. I don't know whether you consider yourself a
> professional linguist or not; I certainly don't consider myself
anything
> more than a serious student of particular languages. But I rely upon
some
> sources that I consider authoritative, especially upon Andrew Sihler's
> _New
> Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin_, a reference work which was
> published within the last decade and which supplanted it's multiple-
> edition
> predecessor by Carl Darling Buck. From Sihler as well as from
considerably
> older works by Meillet and Chantraine (I give bibliographic references
and
> page numbers in "New Observations"), I continue to be persuaded that
the
> parent language from which Greek had only the two basic inflectional
> patterns, "active" and "medio-passive." I am pretty skeptical of your
> suggestion that LUESAI derives from LUEIS SE and would have to see a
lot
> of
> evidence for it before taking it seriously.
> 
> >Now I am not trying to argue for an Indo-European passive either. I
> >suspect that IE made do with an active voice only, as in many modern
> >languages; and I wouldn't rule out use of reflexives for passive and
> >middle senses though we have no clear evidence for this. But there is
> >one passive form which is so widespread that it must have a common
> >Indo-European root: the past participle in -d or -t e.g. English -ed,
> >German -t, Latin -t(us) (cf. French -é), Persian -de, Russian -t(yy).
In
> >all of these languages this form has a passive sense when used with
> >transitive verbs, and in most of them (not sure about Latin,
obsolescent
> >in English) an active sense with intransitive verbs, which indicates
> >split ergativity. And there is a similar participle in Greek, the
aorist
> >passive participle -QEIS - theta representing IE dh or th, and -EIS
> >being an adjectival ending.
> 
> With all due respect, Peter, I have to ask whether this is speculative
or
> whether you've consulted any historical linguistic authorities? Just
to
> take your last assertion, I would say that QE- is a short-vowel form
of
> the
> MP2 voice marker, and that -NT- is the ACTIVE participial infix; the
> nominative participial form -QEIS is derivative from QE-NT-S (-S being
a
> nominative-case ending). One of the remarkable facts about the
so-called
> "passive" -QH- aorist, is that it is conjugated with ACTIVE endings
> (-N/S/{T} etc.--that was what made me first realize that there must be
a
> close link between athematic aorists like EBHN and ESTHN and the
"passive"
> forms in -QHN.
> 
> >Of the languages I know, it is only Greek which has full paradigms
> >including this d/t/theta. But the full paradigms look very secondary
to
> >me, as derived from the participle and forms of EIMI. For example, I
> >would suggest that LUQH = LUQEIS EI, LUQHSOMAI = LUQEIS ESOMAI etc.
This
> >would explain the odd phenomenon that aorist passive endings look
> >active, but future passive ones look middle/passive. I would suggest
> >that these forms arose from periphrastic tenses (as for the past
passive
> >in every other IE language I know) which were originally used to
> >emphasise passivity against the reflexive-derived middle forms. Now I
> >don't know if there is any real evidence to support or disprove my
> >hypothesis e.g. from surviving early Greek. I would be interested to
> >hear of any. And I would accept that semantic shift over the
centuries
> >before the Koine era eroded the original distinction between middle
and
> >passive senses.
> 
> Perhaps you ought to look at some surviving early Greek. The Homeric
poems
> provide a rich resource for Greek linguistic archaeology. I really
don't
> understand what you're saying about LUQH = LUQEIS EI, LUQHSOMAI =
LUQEIS
> ESOMAI. There's no evidence that there were any periphrastic forms of
> these
> aorist and future "passives." If you're talking about LUQHS or, more
> properly, ELUQHS, that's more simply a matter of augment + verb-root +
-
> QH-
> + secondary 2nd-sg. ending -S. As for LUQHSOMAI, that even more simply
> LU-QH-S-O-MAI: verb-root + -QH- + S (future-marker) + O (form of
thematic
> vowel O/E) + -MAI (primary 1st sg. MP  ending).
> 
> I must say that I also don't think it is true that "the Koine era
eroded
> the original distinction between middle and passive senses." I think
the
> fact is rather that earlier Greek used the identical forms (what I've
> called MP1 forms) to express BOTH middle and passive senses, and that
the
> later emerging -QH- forms (what I've called MP2 forms) ALSO expressed
BOTH
> middle and passive senses.
> 
> >The point of my argument here is not to rebut yours about the meaning
of
> >"passive" forms in Koine, but only to show some scepticism about your
> >attempt to find evidence for your theory from Indo-European. This
> >evidence is certainly not clear-cut in your favour.
> 
> Skepticism may very well be warranted, but from what you've offered
above,
> I don't see a credible alternative explanation of these phenomena that
> bears much relationship to what I do think I know about Greek
linguistic
> history.
> --




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