[B-Greek] Koine Middle Voice Changed

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 5 19:54:54 EDT 2003


At 3:31 PM -0700 8/5/03, waldo slusher wrote:
>Dr. Conrad:
>
>I've read with keen interest your observations on the
>middle voice. I will need to reread this several times
>for it to sink in. This question occured to me...In
>your studies, have you had the opportunity to
>ascertain the approximate percentages of E-QHN/QHS/QH
>forms (say in the GNT) used as middles over against
>passives? I would be interested in knowing further if
>this percentage mix carries over proportionately to
>the E-SAMHN/SW/SATO forms as well.

This is rather difficult to sort out, but some of this was done in studies
that I reported on in Fall of 2001. The verb that I really studied in
detail was GINOMAI, and I have reported my findings on that in the Appendix
of my paper, "New Observations on Voice in the Ancient Greek Verb," pp.
15ff., under the title, "Biblical Greek Verbs with both Middle and Passive
Aorists and Futures." What I found is that forms in GENHQH/E (aorist
"passive") showed no apparent distinction in meaning from forms in GENE/O
(aorist "middle"), and that, although one could draw a tentative
distinction between middle and passive semantic force, both were to be
found in both the "middle" and the "passive" morphoparadigms. I think,
however, that if one were seriously to weigh in the balance the -QH-
aorists and futures of the so-called "deponent" verbs that are clearly not
passive in meaning, one would have to term them all, except where they
clearly DO bear a passive semantic force (as sometimes does happen), then
the total number of -QH/E- forms functioning as "middle" would be pretty
high. The problem, as you can readily see, is that traditional interpreters
still want to argue that these -QH/E- "deponent" forms are somehow "active"
in meaning. I think that's pretty far-fetched; quite frequently, they are
intransitive, as in 1 Cor 13:8, the forms KATARGHQHSONTAI and
KATARGHQHSETAI are not really passive but mean simply "will become
obsolete"--they're really synonymous with the other verb there, PAUSONTAI.
Or so I believe, at least.
-- 

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



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