[B-Greek] Pennington's article on deponency
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jan 31 20:45:02 EST 2005
Thanks, Steven. In fact, Jonathan and I have been in correspondence; I've a
copy of his Trinity Journal paper; subsequently he presented a paper at SBL
meeting in Atlanta in Fall of 2003 in which he incorporated quite a bit of
my own research and cited it. You might note Stephen Carlson's on-list
message of 11/24/03 and my response with subject-header: "Is Deponency a
Valid Category for Koine Greek?" and further 5/11/04 with subject-header:
"Danker Festschrift: Deponency and -QH- forms."
At 7:14 PM -0600 1/31/05, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>Hi all:
>
>Just thought I would mention an article on deponency I read last night
>in the Spring 2003 issue of the Trinity Journal by Jonathan T.
>Pennington. He rejects the category of deponency altogether and frames
>his challenge and his thesis in these words:
>
>"I want to challenge the common definitions and use of the grammatical
>category of deponency with this thesis: most if not all verbs that are
>considered 'deponent' are in fact truly middle in meaning. Therefore
>our use of 'deponent' and our assumption about the widespread
>occurrence of 'deponent' verbs needs to be reevaluated" (pp. 60f.).
>
>He argues that two wrong turns have resulted in a misunderstanding that
>led to and perpetuates the idea of deponency: (1) Unfamiliarity with
>the Greek middle voice and our tendency to think about Greek through
>the lens of English and (2) the category of "deponent" borrowed from
>Latin that has unduly influenced our approach to the Greek middle and
>has in turn boxed us in to a way of viewing the middle that is
>misleading.
>
>Of special interest to those who have followed Carl's arguments that
>the -QH forms, traditionally labeled passive, are actually
>middle/passive are Pennington's remarks on the history of Greek voice:
>
>"One of the most unexpected revelations regarding the Greek voices is
>that originally there was no separate passive voice. The language
>existed for some time with only the active and middle voices. Most
>grammarians are confident that the passive voice was a later
>development that stemmed from the middle. it eventually encroached upon
>the middle in form and meaning. The result of this linguistic evolution
>is that Modern Greek has no middle forms remaining, but only active and
>passive. In the NT period, this evolution was still very much in
>process. It is only in the aorist that separate passive forms had
>become fully established (and to a lesser extent the future passive
>which is based on the aorist passive). Meanwhile, the middle form is
>losing ground on its way to obsolescence. This was occurring on three
>fronts. First, verbs that in Classical Greek took middle form in the
>future were tending to adopt future active forms instead. Similarly,
>VERBS THAT WERE TYPICALLY AORIST MIDDLE WERE INCREASINGLY OCCURRING IN
>THE AORIST PASSIVE FORM, YET STILL WITH A MIDDLE OR ACTIVE MEANING. The
>two most common examples of this are APEKRIQH instead of APEKRINATO and
>EGENHQHN instead of EGENOMHN. In both of these instances, some of the
>aorist middle forms are residual in the NT. Thirdly, the active forms
>plus a reflexive pronoun are increasingly used where Classical Greek
>would have used the middle. Understanding this development will help us
>get a better grasp on the Greek middle, and in turn, on Greek
>deponency" (pp. 56f., my emphasis).
>
>Pennington also tacles the issue of deponency and lexicography,
>critiquing BDAG and offering his own solution to the dilemma.
>
>All in all, an interesting read. Maybe yet in your lifetime, Carl. :-)
>============
>
>Steven Lo Vullo
>Madison, WI
>MAR student
>Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
>
>---
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--
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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