[B-Greek] Voice: Distinguishing a Middle from a Passive
Kimmo Huovila
kimmo.huovila at helsinki.fi
Sat Nov 10 08:09:45 EST 2007
How about another explanation for calling these as passives? Maybe it has
nothing to do with deponency or English, but Greek semantics. If EKPLHSSW is
causative 'to dumbfound', according to normal passive semantics EKPLHSSOMAI
would be 'to be dumbfounded' (by something). It is true that it can also be
analyzed as middle. Should we consider this as an example that can be
explained by the semantics of either voice (semantic overlap)?
I doubt that transitivity will solve the issue of distinguishing between
middles and passives. Ultimately the question is not a Greek question but a
linguistics terminology question.
Kimmo
On Saturday 10 November 2007, Carl Conrad wrote:
>
> On Nov 9, 2007, at 7:10 PM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>
> > My Reader's Greek New Testament (I'm not going to
> > ever, ever mention the word 'interlinear' again on
> > this site!!!!!) lists the following words with
> > definitions in both the Active and Passive:
> >
> > EKPLHSSW: I amaze; Passive: I am amazed
> >
> > MHKUNW: make long; Passive: I become long, grow
> >
> > I've tried to follow the discussions on Voice out here
> > on this list (giving most of my attention to Dr.
> > Conrad and Dr. Buth) and still am significantly
> > confused, but I attribute that to my already deficient
> > understanding of even English grammar, much less
> > Greek. Anyway, both of these Passives to me seem like
> > Middles, since the emerge/arise from WITHIN a person's
> > body/soul. I simply do not understand why someone
> > (complied by: Goodrich and Lukaszewski) would call
> > these Passives.
>
> There are two issues here:
> (1) EKPLHSSW is active causative (transitive), something like
> "dumbfound"; EKPLHSSOMAI with an aorist of EXEPLAGHN is intransitive
> middle, "be dumbfounded." It falls in the category of mental process
> and is comparable to FOBEOMAI/EFOBHQHN (which has a causative active
> FOBEW with the sense of "srike terror into, rout"). When used
> transitively with a causal agent external to the patient, we can
> understand EKPLHSSW as active and EKPLHSSOMAI as passive, but the
> intransitive middle has the sense "come into a state of shock" and it
> indicates the subject's response rather than his/her subjection to
> external action. MHKUNW is also active causative but rare, as its
> common form MHKUNOMAI is the intransitive middle with the sense
> "lengthen" (1x only in the GNT of grain stalks growing longer in the
> field, Mark 4:27).
>
> (2) Why would anyone call them passives?
> (a) they are thinking in terms of morphology only, not semantics;
> (b) they are probably thinking in terms of English verbal usage rather
> than Greek verbal usage -- perhaps they are even thinking of "I am
> amazed" in terms of the subject as a patient affected by an external
> agency or instrumentality rather than as a copula ("am") with a
> participle functioning simply as an adjective indicating a state;
> (c) they are thinking in terms of the traditional description of such
> verbs as "deponent" or (since this verb does have a little-used active
> form -- it appears 13x in the GNT but not once in the active voice)
> they are using a description that is common in lexica as in BDAG for
> this verb: "passive with active meaning." The problem with that
> phraseology is that it really means to acknowledge the active role of
> the subject, although the verb takes no object and is intransitive;
> it would be better to use the term "agentive."
> (d) The greater number of grammars and lexica and especially the
> parsing-guides describing voice-usage written in English formulate
> their categories and rules in terms of a conception of English verb
> usage that is unnuanced and more fundamentally in terms of how a Greek
> verb should be translated into English. The consequence of that
> practice is that users of such grammar, lexica, and parsing guides
> acquire the gloss they want for translating into English and don't
> think about the working of the Greek verb.
>
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