[B-Greek] Passive imperatives

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 30 05:41:39 EDT 2007


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)

On Aug 29, 2007, at 10:21 PM, David McCoy wrote:

> Carl:
>
> In your answer to William, you said:
>> (1) MEQUSKESQE is middle rather than passive: you cannot issue a
>> command to a person that someone else do something to him
>
> I must be misunderstanding you -- it sounds as though you are  
> saying there
> can be no such thing as a passive imperative.

What I'd say is that there can't be a SEMANTICALLY passive  
imperative; middle-passive forms of the MAI/SAI/TAI,MH/SO/TO as well  
as QH type can involve action performed upon oneself or action that  
one permits another or others to perform upon him/her.

>
> Can't we understand the passive imperative to mean things like:
> "allow yourself to be ..."
> or even:
> "prepare to be ..."

Right: that's what some grammars call the "permissive" middle or  
passive, but that's the only way the middle-passive or passive  
morphology can function in terms of use.

> I am thinking, for example, of Jesus telling a demon, "FIMWQHTI" ("be
> muzzled" (Mark 1:25).

I take it this is pretty precisely what Archie Bunker, in his less  
charitable moments, meant when he shouted to Edith, "Stifle  
yourself." There were also a couple memorable occasions on which she  
spoke that phrase to him also.




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