[B-Greek] TETARAKTAI in JOHN 12:27
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Mar 3 18:04:00 EST 2008
On Mar 3, 2008, at 4:56 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
> 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.
On my view, the verb is essentially a middle verb (we've already noted
that the middle-passive forms are much more frequent than actives in
both GNT and) LXX); the active is a causative form of TARASSOMAI.
TETARAKTAI is simply the perfect tense of TARASSOMAI in the sense
"enter into turmoil." To this I would add, what others might not
concede, that I believe that there's little difference in standard
Koine usage between TETARAKTAI and ETARACQH (i.e. that both bear the
sense "has come into turmoil." Moreover, even if one wants to speak of
a cause, the cause is surely within the psyche. In terms of Allan's
and Kemmer's categories, this is a "mental process middle" -- "an
animate subject that experiences a mental affectedness" -- not far
removed from a "spontaneous process middle" which better characterizes
an inanimate subject.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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