[B-Greek] Obiter dicta on verb voice (was "Another example ...")
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jul 10 09:32:07 EDT 2006
On Jul 10, 2006, at 8:46 AM, Barry (Hofstetter) wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]
>> On Behalf Of alethinon61 at milwpc.com
>> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 11:58 AM
>> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Another example of a qualitative QEOS
>
>
>> I would say for the same reason we rearrange sentences in English
>> from the active to the passive voice: To bring the predicate into
>> focus giving it a desired and useful emphasis. Wouldn't this fit
>> with the context? If words in English don't change their meaning
>> when found in the passive vs. the active voice, then why would they
>> change meaning in Greek when fronted for emphasis? No one on this
>> forum has addressed this yet.
>
> Sean, I just saw this reply while purging old email. Two points:
>
> 1) The lack of the article in Greek does not in all contexts mean
> that the
> word should be translated with the indefinite article in English.
>
> 2) Meaning is a tricky thing. For example in Latin, you have the verb
> *video*, which means "see." In the passive, however, it is normally
> translated "seem." In Greek, you have such verbs as hISTHMI, which
> may be
> glossed "cause to stand," but in the second aorist means "stand" in
> the
> intransitive sense. So in some languages, form changes actually do
> mean,
> from the perspective translation into English, different meanings.
A couple simple comments on the paragraph immediately above:
Barry is surely right about semantic shifts in verbs in different
voices; it is foolish and self-defeating to attempt to learn verbs in
terms of simple one-word glosses. If one really wants to understand
the most important verbs, in fact, one really ought to study the
details set out for them in an unabridged lexicon (preferably both
BDAG and LSJ and also L&N). Verbs are like individual persons (far
more so than are nouns): they require a nuanced appreciation of
quirks and idiosyncrasies.
What Barry says of "video" in Latin is indeed the case; there may
even be a deliberate play on the ironic character of the "passive" of
this verb -- as in a celebrated line from Aeneid 5 where Vergil
describes a neck-and-neck boat race wherein the unlikely competitor
surges ahead: POSSUNT QUIA POSSE VIDENTUR -- "they are able because
they seem to be able" or "they are able because they are manifestly
able" or even "they are able because they THINK they are able (i.e.
they seem to themselves, much like Greek DOKOUSI)." Moreover,
standard usage of the aorist "passive" (which I would argue is really
MIDDLE here, WFQH has the sense "appeared (usually with a dative of
the person(s) to whom a vision or dream comes.
As for the verb hISTHMI, I honestly believe that this verb should be
listed in lexica and learned by students with a middle lemma,
hISTAMAI and standard principal parts: hISTAMAI, STHSOMAI, ESTHN,
hESTHKA (older hESTAA). As with many "primitive verbs" the "active"
forms in the aorist and perfect tenses go back to an era when the
athematic aorist and perfect-tense forms of middle (so-called
"deponent") verbs were the standard intransitive forms. I think that
hISTHMI is really the secondary active causative form of hISTAMAI
with the sense "cause to stand," "establish." One might even find it
useful to view a second set of principal parts for this active
causative form: hISTHMI, STHSW, ESTHSA. The "passive" ESTAQHN may
bear a real "passive sense" ("was made to stand, was established")
but it may also be simply a later equivalent of ESTHN.
For details of my odd-ball views on voice,
see http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/GrkVc.html
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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