[B-Greek] Voice: Distinguishing a Middle from a Passive
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Nov 10 09:45:18 EST 2007
On Nov 10, 2007, at 8:09 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:
> 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.
Yes, I think this is true -- more of EKPLHSSW/EKPLHSSOMAI than of
MHKUNOMAI. In the case of MHKUNOMAI the middle seems to be the
fundamental form while the active is causative (BDAG says "make grow
long" -- even the English gloss seems to indicate that the active form
is secondary!). There are a number of verbs involving spontaneous
process like MHKUNOMAI, e.g. SHPOMAI, "rot"; it would be hard to see
these as passive, XHRAINOMAI "wither", where there's an active XHRAINW
"cause to wither."
Would you want to explain FOBEOMAI as a passive? There's a whole
category of emotional reactions/responses, e.g. AGALLIAOMAI,
hHDOMAI ... The question would have to be how we interpret the form:
is one acted upon and made to feel delight or pleasure?
>
> 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.
>>
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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