FW: Re: SFRAGIZW: middle or passive?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Oct 20 08:38:58 EDT 2002
At 8:11 AM +0300 10/20/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>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.
And now it is early morning in the Carolina Blue Ridge as I write; I've
been thinking these matters over for several hours myself. The more I think
about it, the more inclined I am to agree with you in some respects, Iver,
but not to agree with you in some others. The question is whether I can
"make myself understood." And that very phrasing of the verbal expression,
"make myself understood," goes right to the heart of the problem I am
pondering, inasmuch as I think the Greek expression ESFRAGISQHTE in Eph
1:13, that was the starting-point for this new round of discussion of
voice, in its context is very similar in its formulation: I'm still
inclined to English this as "you had yourself sealed"
The text: ... EN hWi PISTEUSANTES ESFRAGISQHTE TWi PNEUMATI THS AGGELIAS
TWi hAGIWi, (14) hO ESTIN ARRABWN THS KLHRONOMIAS hHMWN ...
I won't dispute that the agent of the action indicated in ESFRAGISQHTE is
clearly god in this context. What I would question is whether the intent
and involvement of the subject--those addressed here--is altogether
irrelevant in our determination of the semantic voice of the verb. Is it
enough to say, as you appear to believe, that the subject of ESFRAGISQHTE
is simply the patient or experiencer and that the agent is clearly
another--God--and therefore this is passive? I'm willing to say that it's
more passive than middle but that the subject here is a willing,
consenting, participant, engaging deliberately in an action which is
eagerly desired.
Now I can envision more than one way to understand this construction: (1)
one may decide that the semantic voice must be EITHER passive OR middle but
that it CANNOT be BOTH; (2) one may decide, on theological grounds, that
this sealing with the Holy Spirit is wholly God's act and is wholly
independent of the will or intent of the believer; (3) one may decide, on
theological grounds, that this sealing with the Holy Spirit is very much a
matter of the believer's will and intent, and therefore that the semantic
voice of this verb is middle; (4) one may surmise, also on theological
grounds, that this sealing of the believer with the Holy Spirit is
genuinely paradoxical and that the semantic voice cannot be stipulated
unambiguously in this instance. Please note that I am not trying to
introduce a theological thesis into the discussion, as the same
alternatives could be made just as well to apply to a man who goes to the
dentist to have a painful tooth extracted; we say, "he is having his tooth
extracted"--is that verbal phrase semantically middle or passive or both? I
think it's both, but perhaps this is a matter of judgment rather than
something that can be resolved on the basis of linguistic theory. At any
rate, I would want to affirm that historically Greek has only the two
voices inherited from Indo-European: the middle and the passive, and that
it not infrequently uses the middle to express a semantically passive
notion.
>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.
I will agree with this to a certain extent, but I'll disagree when it
becomes a matter of indicating one semantic voice EXCLUSIVELY for a verb
form. And if it is said "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," then I want to say, "Well, yes, that makes good sense,
EXCEPT that ..." I suspect that Greek didn't make the distinction between
middle and passive clear in its paradigms because it didn't feel the need
to do so.
>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 suspect that the example of modern English "you" cuts both ways: I'll
grant that the speaker or writer surely DOES intend his/her spoken/written
"you" to be either singular or plural, but the audience/readers may not
readily understand it as intended, and "you all" or "y'all" is employed
precisely to indicate a distinction when the distinction is important.
>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.)
And this is what it ultimately comes down to: I will agree readily with
this paragraph; I'll agree readily that more often than not the context
DOES indicate clearly enough whether the semantic voice is middle or
passive; on the other hand, I'm inclined to think that the boundary between
middle and passive is more commonly fuzzy than we may assume.
--
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.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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