[B-Greek] Passive with Agent Construction (PAC)
Bryant J. Williams III
bjwvmw at com-pair.net
Mon Sep 11 15:07:00 EDT 2006
Dear List,
I read the reveiw (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.08.58) of the following
book:
Coulter H. George, Expressions of Agency in Ancient Greek. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 288. ISBN 0-521-84789-3. $85.00.
I know that this book is related primarily to Ancient Greek, but the
information in chapters 4, 5 and last chapter have me thinking about just
how much of the "passive with agent construction (PAC) is in the Koine. I do
like the description of the PAC found in the paragraph below detailing the
differences between diffterent authors in determining which preposition is
used. So, the question, is what the author and reveiwer saying accurate?
En Xristwi,
Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
The fourth and the fifth chapters deal with PACs with prepositions other
than hupo in prose, tragedy and comedy. These two chapters form the core of
G.'s project and jointly fill half of the book, but it is the fourth
chapter, which is by far the longest, and the most interesting. It is in the
fourth chapter that G. mainly engages critically with the literature. G.
criticises both Kühner-Gerth's' 'Ausfurhliche Grammatik der griechischen
Sprache' from 1898, and Schwyzer's 'Zum personlichen Agens beim Passiv,
besonderes im Griechischen' from 1943, for being too cursory (p. 103-107).
G. has taken over and worked within parts of the framework of a number of
Luraghi's articles in which she pays attention to how animacy affects the
choice of preposition -- for example 'On the distribution of instrumental
and agentive markers for human and non-human agents of passive verbs in some
Indo-European languages' from 1986, 'Cause and instrument expression in
Classical Greek' from 1989, and 'Animated nouns in cause expressions' from
1994 -- then he criticises her for not treating the material in great
detail, which he sets out to rectify by going through all of the examples of
PACs with prepositions other than hupo in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon,
Lysias, Plato and Demosthenes. On this evidence G. concludes that the choice
of preposition in PACs depends mainly on the semantics of the verb. IF the
verb denotes motion of the patient away from the agent, such as for example
'sending' or 'giving,' then the agent is marked with an ablative
preposition. In Herodotus it is usually ek and in Attic prose it is usually
para + genitive. If the Verb does not depict the patient as moving away from
the agent, such as for example 'thinking' or 'believing,' then the agent is
marked with a locative preposition. In Herodotus it is usually pros +
genitive and in Attic prose it is usually para + dative.
The fifth chapter is brief. G. points out that hupo + genitive is not the
most common agent marker in Attic tragedy but that both ek and pros +
genitive are used much more widely because of their 'metrical utility' since
monosyllables fit more easily into the iambic trimeter than hupo (p. 269).
Finally, the last chapter rejects the claim that hupo merely was replaced by
apo as the agent marker in post-classical Greek. G. shows how this view
relies too much on the evidence of the Judeo-Christian writings. In the New
Testament apo primarily occurs when it marks inanimate agents or is found
with verbs that have the prefix apo.
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