[B-Greek] Accusative of retained object
Kevin Riley
klriley at alphalink.com.au
Tue May 22 20:00:19 EDT 2007
I am still trying to find an explanation of how the middle [which is subject
focused] moved to express the passive which tends to obscure if not remove
the subject. Anyone know of any articles/books that might answer this? I
don't care if it focuses on Greek or deals with pre-Greek developments. I
have actually developed a fondness for Indo-European speculations - now that
I am over the shock of just how foreign" European languages were in the past
It is even starting to make Irish look somewhat "ordinary"."
Kevin Riley
-------Original Message-------
From: Bert de Haan
Date: 23/05/2007 8:41:42 AM
Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>Personally I think we get "boxed into" this problem of "retained
>accusative"
>because we think fundamentally about voice in terms of active-passive
>opposition. In fact, however, Greek has a fundamental opposition of
>active and middle with a middle sometimes functioning as the vehicle
>of passive semantics.
>
Sometimes things take a while to sink in. As I was looking for an answer to
This question I read in Smyth that the passive was formed from the middle.
Carl will probably sigh and think; "I've been trying to say that for years."
Well, it finally clicked.
I thought of the voices as Active over against Passive with Middle having
Some vague purpose in between somewhere. Now I see it as Active over
Against Middle with Middle having the additional purpose of taking care of
The Passive.
Bert de Haan.
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