[B-Greek] Middle and Passive Voice

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Aug 28 22:30:36 EDT 2006


 
On Monday, August 28, 2006, at 10:06PM, Bert de Haan <b_dehaan at sympatico.ca> wrote:

>"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote;
>
>[The whole complex doctrine of "deponency" is one of the schemes created to 
>help
>students keep their orientations in this labyrinth, but that doctrine
>is of
>dubious value at best.]
>
>After reading your explanation several years ago I was better able to 
>understand the concept of middle voice. However  I am at a loss how to 
>explain active forms in one tense and MP forms in another.

Actually I dealt with that in the 2002 version of "New Observations on Ancient Greek Voice." 

>I am not thinking about those verbs that use different roots to form 
>different tenses but verbs like:
>
>Present and future; BAINW - BHSOMAI
>Present and future; APOQNHiSKW - APOQANOUMAI
>Present and future; GINWSKW - GNWSOMAI

And you can add others: MANQANW - MAQHSOMAI; 
LAMBANW - LHYOMAI; TUGCANW - TEUXOMAI

I won't swear to this explanation, but I've seen it argued elsewhere by
others also: I think that some verbs lend themselves particularly to a
sense of self-projection when conceiving action in the future: i.e. the
future act lays a greater emphasis upon what the subject is experiencing.

>Future and aorist of ERCOMAI ->  ELEUSOMAI - HLQON
>Is there a logical explantion or is this another symptom of the historical 
>muddle of middle passive.

There is a logical explanation to a certain extent, but the fact remains 
that the Greek verbal system is extraordinarily complex and that the verbs
in most common everyday use are the ones least likely to be made to follow
regular morphological rules of formation. Just consider the verbs "to be"
and "to go" in the language(s) you know best.

>Bert de Haan.
>
>P.s.  I viewed (but have not read yet) the document in the link that you 
>provided and noticed that there is more information now.  Maybe my question 
>is answered in there.

I wouldn't be surprised if you had still more questions after reading it,
but it's just possible you might not have raised this question if you'd read
that first.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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