[B-Greek] Deponents (was 2nd aorsit ... FOLLOW UP)

Joseph Weaks j.weaks at tcu.edu
Thu Apr 1 17:20:03 EST 2004


On Mar 31, 2004, at 4:41 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 11:23 AM -0600 3/31/04, Joseph Weaks wrote:
>> A verb can be "deponent"
>> (semantic active, not existing in active morphological form) in one
>> principal part and not in another.
>
> I'm a bit curious, Joe, about how you are defining "semantic active."

In my response to the original question, whether the anomaly being true 
for one principal part indicates that it must be true for all principal 
parts, I was simply saying "Assuming the naive textbook definition of 
deponent, some principal parts of a verb can vary." The textbook 
presentation of deponent (say in Machen, Mounce, Wallace) always 
includes this two-fold determination:  No extant active form and an 
active meaning.
Wallace, p. 249, "A deponent middle verb is one that has no active form 
for a particular principal part in Hellenistic Greek, and one whose 
force in that principal part is evidently active."
Machen, §116, "Many verbs have no active forms, but only middle or 
passive forms with active meaning."
Or where I began Greek:
Crosby&Schaeffer, §138, "Some verbs have forms only in the middle of 
passive voice but with active meanings. These are called deponents."
However, I am now at a point much like yours, Carl, with some 
differences.
Continuing:

> We
> had much discussion in November of 2002 on this list about 
> distinguishing
> active, middle, and passive in semantic terms as opposed to the
> morphoparadigms representing them. This is important for the question
> whether we should continue to speak of "deponent" verbs. It might
> theoretically make sense to define a "deponent" verb as a verb that 
> doesn't
> have an active morphoparadigm--although it seems to me it would make 
> more
> sense to try to understand WHY a verb appears in a middle-passive
> morphoparadigm in Greek. I think that it's not appropriate to define a
> GREEK verb as a "deponent" on the basis of whether we use an active 
> verb to
> translate it in another language--assuming, for instance, that "come" 
> is
> active in English (although in archaic English the perfect tense was 
> "is
> come" rather than "has come") and must therefore really have a SEMANTIC
> active meaning. Of course the truth is that it is intransitive...

Quite simplistically, these verbs, say DECOMAI, are declared to have an 
active thrust because after all, "The guy is receiving something, not 
being received." (ignoring the middle thrust). Of course, your 
objection that "it's not appropriate to define a GREEK verb as a 
"deponent" on the basis of whether we use an active verb to translate 
it in another language" is right on target. So, the maximum definition 
of deponent that can withstand any test is in fact quite simply "a verb 
that doesn't have an active morphoparadigm." Trying to defend the 
second part of the definition leads to absurdities. Wallace declares 
DECOMAI as not a deponent, since he detects the reflexive, middle 
force. But how could he not recognize a middle force in ERCOMAI or 
LHMYOMAI or APEKRIQHV or GINOMAI? (Ok, that last word was capitalized 
not just because it's in Greek but also for emphasis. I can't think of 
anything more definitively reflexive than being."
  I can't see how a middle year grammar can hold on to the false 
two-fold definition of deponency.

The problem comes for you and I, Carl, in how we understand the 
semantic/"vocal" differences among principle parts. Though we could 
benefit from much work here, I suspect nothing close to definitive or 
even explanatory will help us understand why this first principal part 
is an active form while this second one is not in many cases.

Be that as it may, yes, I was taught the rather simplistic deponent 
rule at the beginning. But it wasn't too long (months or years) into 
reading Greek that I noticed, "Hey, all these deponent verbs have a 
semantic thrust that by their very nature necessitates the involvement 
of the grammatical subject... verbs of going and following and thinking 
and taking and being." It became increasingly clear to me that the 
reason verbs were "deponent/had no active form in use" was based upon 
the meaning and usage of the word. It was part of my growing into a 
better understanding of the language, and my understanding of deponent 
came to be "Verbs whose semantic domain inherently contains a middle or 
passive thrust and so doesn't exist in an active morphoparadigm.
But in the same way, at the beginning of first semester, I was taught 
that word order doesn't make a difference... that grammatical gender is 
not related to sex... that aorist is past time.  But by the end of the 
semester, my teacher would preach the glories of Xenephon, on the 
brilliant placement of this word in the poem for parallel emphasis.

If I may digress. I don't remember much from the fourth grade, but this 
memory is fixed in my mind. Our teacher told us, "Never begin a 
sentence with 'because.' A sentence such as 'Because I like my dog.' 
starts with an insubordinate conjunction, making the sentence 
incorrect." After I completed my writing assignment, I turned it in and 
went back to my desk for a brief moment before she called me forward. 
For in my paragraph, as a shy, wayward  child desperately trying to 
make his mark in the world, I had attempted to rise above the mundane 
by writing, "Because I like my dog, I take him for a walk every day." 
She simply said, "You can't begin a sentence with 'because' and sent me 
back to my desk to rewrite the paragraph.

While she failed to notice my brilliance, I do think we need to 
maintain some nomenclature for discussing, and more importantly 
teaching, these dynamic verbs. Beginning students need a way to know 
what form they need to memorize as a principal part, and in some way it 
may pave the way for a category that can be understood as verbs which 
are semantically inherently wrapped up in a middle or passive force.
And if the initial description is oversimplistic, well, so it is with 
beginnings. Because part of learning is discovering the errors in what 
you thought you knew.

Oh... and.. I walk my dog every day.

Cheers,
Joe Weaks




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