[B-Greek] TETARAKTAI in JOHN 12:27

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 3 16:56:08 EST 2008


JOHN 12:27 NUN hH YUCH MOU TETARAKTAI ...

Here we have a middle/pass perfect with hH YUCH as subject. This  
clause has low transitivity. hH YUCH is not an agent or a patient.  
The verb TETARAKTAI describes a state without any suggestion (within  
this clause) of how hH YUCH came to be in this state, i.e. no cause  
or agent is encoded. However, a cause can be supplied without  
difficulty from the local discourse.

Two questions:

In traditional grammar TETARAKTAI would be described as a passive.  
The passive has been understood as a means of suppressing the notion  
of agency but I am not sure how relevant this is to states.

I am having some difficulty fitting this into the "middle marked for  
subject affectedness" scheme of things.



Elizabeth Kline







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