[B-Greek] Deponents (was 2nd aorsit ... FOLLOW UP)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Apr 2 16:29:57 EST 2004
At 3:41 PM -0500 4/2/04, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>I don't want to get into a big discussion here on Latin morphology and
>syntax either, but I respect you too much pass up an opportunity
>in trying to understand the basis of any disagreement you may have
>with I wrote. So, I'll be as brief as I can be.
>
>"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
>>This is not really an appropriate forum for discussing Latin morphology and
>>syntax; therefore I'll add only a couple footnotes to the discussion at
>>this point: (1) Defining "deponent" as a verb that "lays down its passive
>>meaning" strikes me as no better than defining it as a verb that "lays down
>>its active form"); it's hard for me to see how we can see a verb "lays
>>down" something that there's no evidence it ever had;
>
>I suppose one flaw in my definition is that I've defined deponents in
>terms of what they are *not* rather than in terms of what they *are*.
>(I'm still uncertain, on account of verbs like AGGREDIOR, that being
>middle can be a general purpose solution.) This would make Latin
>deponents a residual category rather than a natural class. So in this
>respect, I could agree that deponency isn't an objectively real part of
>the Latin language, if that's what your objection is. Even so, a residual
>category is a sort of a fudge factor, and some of them are more useful
>than others. To the extent my recent remarks about the usefulness
>of deponency as a category in Latin (of which I think I've said enough)
>were so imprecise as to also imply its linguistic reality, I'd disavow any
>such implication.
Stephen, I really hesitate to continue discussion of Latin grammatical
questions in this forum after we've agreed that the term deponent evidently
borrowed from Latin grammarians to apply to Greek just isn't appropriate to
Greek. I will admit that the term "deponent"--quite regardless of
difficulties of justifying it etymologically--has a degree of utility in
Latin pedagogy since there's clearly a significant number of verbs in -OR
that really are not passive--I think the question of the historical
development of Latin voice is a complex one and it's not a question I'm
pursuing at present, although I have some notions about it that I might
explore if I live long enough. I very much appreciate your response, and
perhaps I'll go on with it off-list at another time, but for now I think we
ought to drop the question of Latin voice in this Greek forum.
Best regards, c
--
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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