[B-Greek] ANISTHMI (active) w/agent UPO+gen

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Jan 27 05:49:45 EST 2008


On Jan 26, 2008, at 5:56 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

>
> On Jan 26, 2008, at 2:50 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
>> I just finished reading the introduction to Rutger Allan, "Middle
>> Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study of Polysemy" Amesterdam 2003. At the
>> same time I was pondering a passage in Thucid. 1.8.2 which seems
>> relevant to NT, LXX and early Greek Patristic literature.
>>
>> MINW ... hOI GAR EK TWN NHSWN KAKOURGOI ANESTHSAN hUP' AUTOU ...
>>
>> Here we see ANESTHSAN combined with a specified agent hUP' AUTOU
>> where MINW is the referent. G.Cooper (53.3.1) lists this citation
>> under his discussion of "Neuter" verbs which are "active in form but
>> typically intransitive in use" (53.3.0).
>
> I should add that ANESTHSAN in this context involves forced migration
> of the peoples who lived on the islands and were involved in piracy
> and so forth. The semantics of the word isn't the issue so much as
> the active form with the specified agent hUP' AUTOU.

(1) That active intransitive verbs should be used with hUPO + genitive  
agent constructions in a passive sense really should not be  
surprising. For one thing, there are several standard verbs that are  
so used in Classical Attic, among them PIPTW functioning as passive of  
BALLW, APOQNHiSKW functioning as passive of APOKTEINW, PASCW (with  
accusative object) functioning as passive of POIEW (e.g. DEINA EPAQON  
hUPO TOUTOU TOU ECQROU EMOU).

(2) Despite the traditional conception of the morphology of voices as  
involving distinct "active," "middle," and "passive" forms that  
represent some clear distinction of transitivity and/or causality, the  
fact (I believe) is that the alternative voice-forms actually  
represent only two alternative senses: the "active" is UNMARKED for  
subject-affectedness while the "middle-passive" is MARKED for subject- 
affectedness. "Active" forms, especially in the aorist and in the  
perfect are, especially in the case of some of the most primitive  
verbs, unmarked for subject-affectedness, the middle-passive of the  
perfect and the "weak" sigmatic aorist active emerging later  
historically. This is particularly the case with those primitive verbs  
that have strong athematic aorists: ESTHN with perfect hESTHKA (older  
hESTAA), EFANHN with perfect PEFHNA.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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