[B-Greek] Third-person commands

Yancy Smith Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Fri Nov 18 12:47:09 EST 2005


I am with you, Don, on the subject of passive transformations of  
active statements, but I don't think it is proper to see the third  
person active imperative as a passive construction, because there are  
(even in my Matthew list) some third person passive imperatives. Your  
example below would be expressed as a third person passive imperative:

> That is, the 2p command "Do this" is switched to "This is to be  
> done [by you]," where the agent (you) is implied but not expressed.  
> I thought of several everyday examples, such as "Do the dishes  
> before I get back" vis-a-vis "The dishes are to be done before I  
> get back."

In the following case, I don't see how "inform," "is to know" are  
passive:

> A 3p command like "No one is to know about this" may not seem to  
> fit at first, but what we really have is "Do not inform anyone" vs.  
> "no one is to know," where "know" is an equivalent to the passive  
> of "inform".

However, I think that the use of 3rd person imperatives to address  
2nd persons is analogous to some passive transformations in that they  
are ways of speaking indirectly to 2nd persons. I think it is very  
important not to confuse INDIRECT communication with PASSIVE  
constructions, though they both are ways of including 2nd persons in  
the performance of commands directed to 3rd persons not present. This  
is done to allow the 2nd persons to save face, to allow speakers to  
express something unpleasant in a less offensive way, and I believe  
it can be shown that passive constructions are capable of the same  
thing. What remains to be seen is whether NT third person  
imperatives, whether active or passive, are USUALLY addressing 2nd  
persons indirectly or whether they normally address 3rd persons in  
absentia. I am inclined to believe the former.

In the case of ORATE MHDEIS GINWSKETW the action of the 2nd persons  
is explicitly enjoined, so that we have a double imperative. I think  
this is a good model upon which to build a theoretical way of seeing  
3rd person commands and their relation to 2nd persons. The author  
could just as well have said MHDEIS GINWSKETW and meant the same  
thing. This tells me that 3rd person commands can either express or  
not the implicit 2nd person command associated with them, as your  
discussion implies.

Yancy

Yancy Smith
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Brite Divinity School
Texas Christian University






More information about the B-Greek mailing list