[B-Greek] Middle Voice and Linear A & B
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 22 07:52:24 EDT 2007
I think that Linear B is a non-starter for the purposes indicated; as
Kevin has noted, the materials are essentially inventories of stored
items and nouns are more in evidence than anything else. If that's
not true, I'd be happy to be corrected.
BUT -- there's abundant evidence from the Homeric poems themselves
about earlier phases of voice usage in ancient Greek, provided one
abandons the old notion of deponency with its "one size fits all"
notion that (deponent) verbs are all verbs with active meaning and
incomprehensibly middle or passive morphology, and endeavors to
examine the middle-passive verb forms in terms of their kinds and
usage. I'm now reading through a book that does that and more with
remarkably impressive methodology and thoroughness; it is a
University of Amsterdam dissertation (in English) published in 2004:
Rutger J. Allen, _The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study in
Polysemy_. Once I complete my study of this book I'll try to
summarize some of the more important conclusions that Allen has
reached regarding the kinds of verbs and usage that fall into regular
middle-passive categories. Allen doesn't go into Koine usage, but his
treatment of Homeric, Herodotean Ionic and Classical Attic seems to
me so thorough as to facilitate carrying his investigations forward
into Hellenistic Greek, including NT Koine. I've got much of the data
assembled already; I think there's material for more dissertation
research here.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
On Aug 21, 2007, at 9:54 PM, Kevin Riley wrote:
> I am not ignorant about Linear B, but I was under the impression
> that linear
> B does not have any real literary value because it consists mostly
> of lists.
> It is not connected prose or poetry from which we can draw
> conclusions
> about how its grammar works. Would the middle voice actually turn
> up in the
> Linear B tablets often enough to see how it works, and if there is any
> development towards a passive use?
>
> Kevin Riley
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: Bryant J. Williams III
> Date: 22/08/2007 11:24:39 AM
>
> Dear Carl,
>
> I passed on to a colleague of mine your comments to Kevin Riley
> (along with
> his
> Questions and comments) about the Middle Voice. See Below his
> comments.
>
> "Interesting comments from Carl Conrad. One does wonder, however,
> whether
> the
> Average Greek speaker in the classical era thought in terms of
> "subject-affectedness" when he heard a middle voice form used!
> Kevin Riley wrote, "... Until we discover pre-Homeric literature I
> guess it
> Will remain conjecture." Actually, there are over 6,000 tablets
> written in
> Linear B, which is a pre-Homeric form of Greek. Linear A, of
> course, has not
>
> Yet been deciphered, and it is arguable whether or not it is
> actually Greek.
>
> But if it turns out to be genuine Greek we would have an even earlier
> Testimony to the origins of the Greek language. "
>
> My question is "Has there been anything written or discussion of
> Linear B
> Tablets to help with the history of the Greek language especially with
> regard to
> The Middle Voice, etc.?
>
> Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
>
>
> ---
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