[B-Greek] Middle voice and passive construction
Andy Kaylor
andy_kaylor at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 8 17:41:42 EST 2007
I'm in the very early stages of trying to learn Greek on my own from Bill Mounce's book (I just finished with indicative verbs), so whatever I say is likely to be full of misconceptions. That said, the middle voice really makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I can understand it (as much as I understand anything), even if I can't represent it in English.
In fact, as I've been working through Mounce's book, it has at times struck me that things he calls deponent make sense to me as middle. For instance, POREUOMAI he says is deponent and therefore simply means "I go" (or proceed or live or whatever else) as though it were purely active, but it's obvious that when I go it affects me.
And so, if I've got this right, it seems to me that just as many prepositions make more sense if I picture them spacially than if I try to memorize a list of their English equivalents, verbs make more sense if I try to understand them from within the shoes of the subject than if I try to picture them in an English sentence, particularly with the middle voice.
Of course, all of this is from the perspective of someone who has to take a minute to figure out the meaning of a simple nominative subject, indicative verb, accusative direct object sentence. My opinion may change when I get to the point of being able to read and comprehend with any speed.
Andy Kaylor
Beaverton, Oregon
----- Original Message ----
From: JFS <bigjfs at hotmail.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] Middle voice and passive construction
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