[B-Greek] Voice: Distinguishing a Middle from a Passive

Mitch Larramore mitchlarramore at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 10 16:07:30 EST 2007


Kimmo said:

> 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.

Dr. Conrad said:

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."

May I ask what is the relationship between
'transitivity' and 'voice?' Because, it seems to me
that only sometimes does a Middle verb have an object
different than itself.


Mitch Larramore
Sugar Land, Texas

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