[B-Greek] Passive Voice
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Feb 1 07:31:59 EST 2005
At 3:23 PM +1100 2/1/05, Kevin Riley wrote:
>All the discussions on the Middle voice prompted me to check just what
>exactly the passive voice was meant to signify in Greek. I have struggled
>with a couple of languages where the passive is very different to in
>English, so thought I may have made a mistake in assuming it was the same in
>Greek. I especially find it odd that the Passive - which is meant to
>emphasise the *object* [of the corresponding active sentence] according to
>the grammars I have - grew out of the Middle which emphasises the
>*subject's* involvement in the action. I also find it odd that a voice that
>is meant to emphasise that the subject is acted upon can readily occur in
>contexts where it is hard to see that there is really any emphasis on the
>subject. Is it possible that the passive emphasises the action itself rather
>than the subject or object? Are there any good examinations of the meaning
>of the passive that are generally available without access to a theological
>library?
I have made available two papers setting forth my views on ancient Greek
voice; they may be read on-line or downloaded (by option-clicking).
Probably the clearer document is the shorter "Active, Middle, and Passive:
Understanding Ancient Greek Voice" which I wrote expressly in order to set
forth as simply as possible what I think a student needs to understand
about ancient Greek voice:
http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/UndAncGrkVc.pdf
The longer document is a fuller accounting for and exposition of my
understanding of the historical development of the Greek voices in
antiquity and a proposal for renaming the categories as well as dropping
altogether the obfuscating notion of "deponency." This is a November 2002
revision of some theses originally presented on B-Greek in May of 1997, but
I am currently in the process of revision and expansion of that document to
provide more thorough documentation with respect both to the historical
development of the morphology and to voice usage in the GNT as a usage
exhibiting both earlier and later stages of a shift from the older
MAI/SAI/TAI;MHN/SO/TO morphoparadigms toward the -QH- morphoparadigms as
primary vehicles to carry the "middle-passive" senses. The 2002 version of
my longer paper, entitled "New Observations on Ancient Greek Voice" is at
http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/NewObsAncGrkVc.pdf
--
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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