[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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