[B-Greek] MGr. Voice Parallels

Mark Lama markosl80 at yahoo.com
Wed Jan 21 15:51:49 EST 2004


I thought this might interest some who have followed the lengthy discussions of voice on this list. I am not by any means an expert in Modern Greek, but I was reading an article yesterday on the site www.kathimerini.com , a Greek-language online newspaper, and I came across two interesting uses of the same verb in the so-called passive voice. The form was BREQHKE, the MGr. equivalent of hHUREQH/hEUREQH. The article was a about a robbery. In the first sentence, it is told how the victim *finds himself* (BREQHKE) confronted by the perpetrators' weapons. A few sentences later, it says that the getaway vehicle *was found* (BREQHKE) not far away. There is no agent construction, but the implication is clearly "by investigators". It is interesting that in Modern Greek, passivity still does not seem to be necessarily implied by the -QH- (now -QHK-) forms. Indeed, the first instance, clearly "middle" in force, seems to parallel the use of the reflexive "hallarse", "to find oneself", in
 Spanish. 
 
Another interesting usage in the same article involves the verb SUMMORFWNW (=SUMMORFOW). The article tells how the victim *complied* (SUMMORFWQHKE) with the perpetrators' demands, the idea being "conformed (intransitive)". This is not a "deponent" verb--the "active" SUMMORFWNW is used in the sense "conform (transitive)". So deponency is still probably not a useful concept for Modern Greek.
 
I find these parallels interesting for the support they lend to Carl's view of voice in Greek. If the -QH- forms are still not exclusively passive today, what evidence do we have that they ever were? 
 
CARIS KAI EIRHNH,
 
Mark Lama



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