[B-Greek] Passive Voice

Marco Fabbri fabbri at pusc.it
Tue Feb 1 09:23:46 EST 2005


Professor Conrad announces a new version of his 
document NewObsAncGrkVc.pdf. It is already a very 
useful reading: I now look forward to the new 
version.

I have already been persuaded by prof. Conrad 
that the difference between the 
MAI/SAI/TAI;MHN/SO/TO morphoparadigm and the -QH- 
morphoparadigm is not to be explained as a 
difference between Middle and Passive.

I would be greatly interested if the new version 
elaborated further on the -H- forms, as they 
appear in aorists like EFANHN (from FAINW) or 
EBLABHN (from BLAPTW).

The paper NewObsAncGrkVc.pdf as published 
actually mentions these forms, but doesn't focus 
on them.

My questions are: can we say that there are only 
two different forms of MP (often called in this 
list MP1 and MP2)? If so, should EFANHN fall into 
the -QH- morphoparadigm? Wouldn't this look a bit 
strained, if the morphoparadigm is defined 
according to its form, not its function? If Q is 
missing, we have no longer -QH-.

Should we rather construe a third morphoparadigm, that is apparent in EFANHN?

Or should we re-define the morphoparadigm as -H-?

If so, should we do anything similar with active 
voice, whenever there are double forms, such as 
the aorists ESTHSA and ESTHN? (Something like A1 
and A2: "active 1" and "active 2"). Indeed, it is 
striking that "active" ESTHN is so similar to 
"passive" EFANHN.

I am not asking these question to challenge prof. 
Conrad's conclusions, but rather to point some 
more problems that are not tackled to my 
satisfaction by the traditional approach, and 
that may find a better answer.

Marco Fabbri

>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/


-- 
_______________________________________
Prof. Marco V. Fabbri
Dipartimento di Sacra Scrittura
Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
Piazza S. Apollinare 49
I-00186 Roma
Italy

e-mail: fabbri at pusc.it
fax: ++39-06-68164400



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