FW: Re: SFRAGIZW: middle or passive?

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Oct 20 01:11:20 EDT 2002


Now that it is early Sunday morning and I have mulled it over in my sleep,
let me add a couple more thoughts to my understanding of the Greek middle in
semantic terms.

I don't think we can posit one, simple, semantic definition of the middle
that will cover all different kinds of verbs.

Some verbs are by nature of their semantic content basically middle, e.g.
ENDUOMAI (to dress). One normally dresses oneself, so the agent of the
action coincides with the recipient of the action. (recipient may be
experiencer or beneficiary). This verb does - rarely - occur in the active
form ENDUW with the sense dress someone else. In that case the agent is
different from the recipient. This active event can be transformed into a
passive "I am being dressed by someone". If you focus on the result - I end
up being dressed - the middle and passive are similar. But one still needs
to make a semantic distinction between the semantic middle of dressing
oneself and the semantic passive of being dressed, REGARDLESS of whether the
Greek grammar makes that distinction or not.

SFRAGIZW is by nature of its semantic context basically active. It can -
rarely - occur in the semantic middle (sealing for my benefit). Since it is
basically a semantic active verb, the semantic passive should be a common
occurrence, and it is.

To infer that when a language does not make a particular distinction in its
lexicon or grammar, then it does not make the corresponding distinction in
its semantics, is a doubtful inference. Let me explain what I mean by an
example. In modern, standard English, people make no distinction between
you-singular and you-plural. Does that mean that English speakers do not
make the corresponding semantic distinction? Would you (y'all) agree if I
said that since the English language does not make that grammatical
distinction, then the English people do not think in terms of singular and
plural for "you"?
I do accept that when the grammar does NOT make the distinction, then a text
is often ambiguous. Sometimes the immediate context will clear up the
ambiguity, sometimes it will not (in which case the distant context and
further reasoning may or may not solve the ambiguity.)

Iver Larsen




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