Tagging (was "Middle & Passive Aorist & Future forms)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Dec 16 19:25:43 EST 2002


I've changed the header because we now have a thread on "Tagging."

At 11:10 AM -0800 12/16/02, Dr. Dale M. Wheeler wrote:
>To All:
>
>I think there has been a serious misunderstanding of what I was saying (or
>perhaps a mis-speaking on my part)....and the misunderstanding has rapidly
>spread...I got a note from Dan Wallace this morning from Germany indicating
>that he'd heard that I was planning on changing the GRAMCORD tags!  Let me
>say this clearly:  I'm not changing the GRAMCORD tags!
>
>Here's what I said to Dan (in a slightly altered form):
>
>>The only thing I've said is that I agree with Carl that the concept of
>>deponency is fine for Latin, but it really doesn't explain the M/P
>>phenomenon in Greek.  This conclusion has only been strengthened while
>>I've been fixing the tagging on the MorphLXX.

I'll want to say something more about the question of properly tagging
Greek verb-forms for voice, but I'll put that off. One brief (foot)note
now: I honestly don't believe that the concept of deponency "is fine" for
Latin any more than it is for Greek. First of all, so-called "deponent"
verbs in Latin are no more "exceptions to a rule" in Latin than such verbs
are in Greek. SEQUOR in Latin works exactly like hEPOMAI in Greek. If VOLVO
in Latin means "I cause to roll," VOLVOR means "I
roll/turn-myself-over-and-over." Latin passive verb forms  may more often
than not bear a passive sense, but it would be more truthful to say that
the -r/ris/tur/mur/mini/ntur morphoparadigm is "middle-passive" just as is
the Greek MAI/SAI/TAI/MEQA/SQE/NTAI morphoparadigm. I learned Latin long
before I started learning Greek, but it was only after I learned the middle
voice in Greek that the Latin so-called "deponent verbs" fell into place
for me. All those verbs that take an instrumental ablative as if it were a
direct object are fundamentally middle voice: UTOR, POTIOR, VESCOR, FUNGOR,
etc.
-- 

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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