[B-Greek] Deponents (was 2nd aorsit ... FOLLOW UP)
Stephen C. Carlson
scarlson at mindspring.com
Fri Apr 2 09:06:29 EST 2004
At 11:35 AM 4/1/04 -0500, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 12:28 AM -0500 4/1/04, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>>Coming from Latin, which does have a real deponent
>>system, I was naturally very inclined to hold on to
>>the concept of deponency in Greek. But it hurt more
>>than helped in Greek. ...
>
>I personally think that the term "deponent" is no more useful in Latin than
>it is in Greek; I think it can be readily demonstrated that the verbs with
>-OR lemmas in Latin are really middle-voice forms. Latin SEQUOR derives
>from the very same PIE root as Greek hEPOMAI and functions like it with a
>dative complement. The so-called "Greek accusative" is best explained like
>its Greek prototype as the direct object of a middle-voice participle. I
>remember my puzzlement when I first read the form VOLVITUR in Aeneid 1
>which can only mean "rolls" and wondered why it was in the passive voice;
>many years later I came to realize that it is NOT in the passive voice but
>in the middle.
>
>I think that what has happened in Latin is much the same as what happened
>in later Greek: although it is commonly claimed that the Greek middle-voice
>was replaced by the passive, the fact seems rather to be that the Greek
>middle-passive morphoparadigms in MAI/SAI/TAI came to be supplanted by
>-QHN/QHS/QH forms with the same dual functions. That's what happened in
>Latin also, I believe: the OR/RIS/TUR forms bear BOTH middle AND passive
>senses, depending upon the particular verb.
I think the difference is that Latin does not have a distinct
middle-voice morphology, and it is difficult to come up with a
fairly unified conceptual explanation for how Latin deponents
behave. Some are certainly middle in force (but I'm not quite
convinced yet that VOLVITUR in Aen. 1.116 is one of them), but
others like AGGREDIOR and CONSECTOR behave syntactically no
differently from other transitives with active-voice morphology,
and it's hard to see any appreciable semantic difference from
their active-voice synonyms.
On the other hand, I've never really been a fan of "passive in
form but active in meaning," so I would tend to endorse an under-
standing of a deponent as a verb with passive-voice morphology
that "lays down" (DEPONET) its passive meaning in favor of a
non-passive meaning. That non-passive meaning need not be
"active," and can be what we would call middle if in Greek.
When explained to the English native speakers, whose language
lacks a distinct middle voice, calling that non-passive meaning
"active" is perhaps no more an oversimplification than a lot
of other rules of thumb given at an early point. You certainly
have a lot more experience teaching Latin than I do, so it would
be interesting to find out for me whether this oversimplication
is as harmful as "dative = to/for" or other early heuristics.
The perniciousness of Latinate approach to Greek on deponents
is that Greek does indeed have a distinct and productive middle
voice, and labeling a set of verbs as "deponent" robs the student
of the opportunity for appreciating how these verbs really are
(lexically) middle and what the full force of the middle can be in
other Greek verbs.
I might propose that "deponent" for Greek be banned in favor of
something like "lexically middle" (not so dissimiliar to the
concept that some verbs are lexically stative, durative, etc.,
which affects which morphology can be used.). I don't think
that Latin deponents can be disposed of so easily (and perhaps
that's true for a rump of nasty exceptions to Greek deponents
as well).
Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Weblog: http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/hypotyposeis/blogger.html
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing 2.35
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