[B-Greek] help yourself by helping others
bitan buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri Mar 31 15:52:22 EST 2006
Conrad EGRAPSE
>I've made no
secret of my conviction that continued use of the term 'deponent" is
a deterrent to understanding middle-passive verb usage in Koine
(particularly in the light of the superb essay by Neva Miller in the
appendix of the last published edition of ANLEX) and that the
particular multi-classification of so-called "deponent" verbs in this
database perpetuates one of the less-defensible traditional doctrines
of ancient Greek pedagogy.>
I would like to AMEN Carl on this. Greeks did not have another language
for translating into in order to develop a category 'deponent'.
ERXESQAI was MESH (middle)
ELQEIN was ENERGETIKH (active)
They used the words, added endings according to the formal categories,
and that was that.
They thought that ERXESQAI was MESH (middle) and
that ELQEIN was ENERGETIKH (active). And they knew that it was the
same general word, though literary Koine writers typically
supplemented these with even more words like EIS-I-ONTES 'entering'
instead of EISERXOMENOI.
Even when a word is attested in both ENERGETIKH and MESH, it is
useful to relate to each form separately.
POIHSAI 'to do'
POIHSASAQAI (many idiomatic uses) 'hold, reckon, act as though,
do for oneself'
EKSELEI~N 'to take out, capture' (>EKSAIREW)
EKSELESQAI 'to choose; unload, take out for oneself'
and
QEINAI 'to put'
QESQAI 'to put'
For the Greeks, their world was not flat nor consistent,
but it was the world.
OUTWS ESTW.
'Deponent' would seem to be one extra, unnecessary layer separating
a student from Greek itself.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
c/o margbuth at gmail.com
also, Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
under Rothberg International School,
Hebrew University
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
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