[B-Greek] TETARAKTAI in JOHN 12:27

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Mar 5 12:01:04 EST 2008


On Mar 4, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
> To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: 4. marts 2008 00:56
> Subject: [B-Greek] TETARAKTAI in JOHN 12:27
>
>
>> 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.
>
> Why are you saying that hH YUCH is not a patient? I would describe  
> it as such.
> Whether the form is considered morphologically a middle or passive  
> does not change the semantic role
> of patient expressed by the subject.
>
> The role of Agent is normally restricted to animate beings, but  
> Cause is an expansion of that notion
> to include inanimate concepts.
> To give an English example:
> "It disturbed me" is syntactically transitive with a Cause role  
> referring to some event as subject
> and "me" as object and patient.
> "I was disturbed" can be considered either middle or passive with  
> "I" as the patient and no
> expressed Cause.

While I think I'd agree that hH YUCH is a patient in the construction  
of this clause, I find these English examples rather confusing: they  
don't have the "ring" of ordinary spoken or written English, it seems  
to me.  I can see "it disturbed me" as a woodenly-literal English for  
ETARAXEN EME, and I can see "I was disturbed" as a more common sort of  
English for ETETARAGMHN. I continue to think that TARASSOMAI is the  
standard (intransitive) form of the verb with a sense of "enter into a  
state of turbulence" -- whether physically or mentally. Physically it  
might describe a fit or seizure, mentally a loss of mental/emotional  
equilibrium. TARASSW is a transitive active causative form of the  
verb, but I think it's questionable to conceive the other forms of the  
verb as transformations of TARASSW + accusative object.

> In English it is possible to add the Cause role as a secondary role  
> and it becomes:
> "I was disturbed by it".
> I don't know whether such secondary Cause role addition is possible  
> in Greek in the same way that
> secondary Agents can be added by hUPO.

Can we doubt that hH YUCH MOU TETARAKTAI is a periphrasis of  
TETARAGMAI? Webb says that it is the imminence of Jesus' death that is  
the cause of this TARACH, but it isn't the FACT so much as the  
AWARENESS of the fact that brings about the turmoil referred to: the  
entire process is internal.

 From my own perspective, I'd have to say that this usage of  
TETARAKTAI in John 12;27 is further evidence for the non- 
differentiation of middle and passive in Greek morphology.


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






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