[B-Greek] TETARAKTAI in JOHN 12:27

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Mar 4 07:40:43 EST 2008


I think, on further thought, that TETARAKTAI in Jn 12:27 is best  
understood as a stative: "My mind is in turmoil."
On Mar 3, 2008, at 6:04 PM, Carl Conrad wrote:

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






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