[B-Greek] Aorist Middle/Passive?
Richard Ghilardi
qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Mon Nov 17 12:59:55 EST 2008
Thank you, Dr. Conrad, for your clear and informative reply.
Yours in His grace,
Richard Ghilardi - qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
West Haven, Connecticut USA
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On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:03:23 -0500 Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
writes:
>
> On Nov 17, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Richard Ghilardi wrote:
>
> > Hello Folks,
> >
> > The following quotation is found in Donald Mastronarde's
> > Introduction to
> > Attic Greek, page 141, paragraph 6:
> >
> > << Note on Terminology. The aorist middle is called "middle"
> rather
> > than
> > "middle/passive" because there is a separate aorist passive form,
>
> > based
> > on a different tense stem. In fact, strong aorist middle forms
> are
> > sometimes found with passive meaning in early poetry and early
> > prose, but
> > in classical Attic usage this passive use of the aorist middle
> form is
> > confined to ESXOMHN, from EXW (and compounds). The weak aorist
> > middle is
> > sometimes used intransitively or reflexively, but it CANNOT be
> used
> > with
> > a passive meaning. >> (Emphasis is mine.)
> >
> > This quote puzzles me because it seems to be at variance with
> Carl
> > Conrad's several essays on Greek voice. (I agree with Dr. Conrad.)
>
> > Either
> > I have misunderstood one (or both) of these teachers or one of
> them is
> > wrong. (Perhaps there are other possibilities.)
>
> Your cited passage is in fact essentially correct. There are two
> aorist middle verb-forms, however, that can be used in a passive as
>
> well as in a middle sense, depending on contextual framework:
> APWLOMHN
> and EGENOMHN; APWLOMHN is the aorist of APOLLUMAI, EGENOMHN is the
>
> aorist of GI(G)NOMAI. Both these verbs can take an agent
> construction.
> E.g. 1Cor. 10:10 µ?d? ??????ete, ?a??pe?
> t???? a?t?? ??????sa? ?a?
> ?p????t? ?p? t?? ?????e?t??. [MHDE
> GOGGUZETE, KAQAPER TINES AUTWN EGOGGUSAN KAI APWLONTO hUPO TOU
> OLOQREUTOU]; Acts 26:6 ?a? ??? ?p? ??p?d?
> t??
> e?? t??? pat??a? ?µ?? ?pa??e??a?
>
> ?e??µ???? ?p? t?? ?e?? ?st??a
> ?????µe???, [KAI NUN EP' ELPIDI THS EIS TOUS PATERAS
> hHMWN
> EPAGGELIAS GENOMENHS hUPO TOU QEOU KRINOMENOS]. There are, as
> Mastronarde notes, several more to be found in Homer and other early
>
> poetry, such forms as BEBLHTO (from BALLW), "was hit."
>
> The position I have argued has more to do with the QH forms
> ordinarily
> termed "aorist passive" or "future passive." My view is that the QH
>
> aorist and QH future forms were beginning, already in Homer, to
> supplant the aorist middle forms in MHN/SO/TO/MEQA/SQE/NTO while
> continuing to bear middle sense/function. This observation applies
> to
> most so-called "deponent verbs" such as DUNAMAI, aor HDUNHQHN or
> POREUOMAI, aor. EPOREUQHN. Over the course of several centuries the
> QH
> aorist forms came ever more completely into use where previously
> MHN/
> SO/TO aorists had been dominant. In Classical Attic the aorist of
> APOKRINOMAI is APEKRINAMHN, while in the GNT it is almost always
> APEKRIQHN.
>
> Over the centuries the functions associated with these distinct verb
>
> morphologies underwent a significant transformation. The fact that
> the
> language was always in flux makes it somewhat difficult or
> misleading
> to characterize precisely the prevalent forms of paradigms in the
> different eras.
>
> > In paragraph 5 on the same page Mastronarde writes that ELYSA =
> 'I
> > released' and ELYSAMHN = 'I ransomed'. If paragraph 6 is correct,
> > ELYSAMHN cannot mean 'I was released', can it?
>
> No, and it does not.
>
> > Is Mastronarde right in asserting that a 1st aorist middle form
> can
> > never
> > have a passive meaing, and, with one exception, neither can a 2nd
>
> > aorist
> > middle form in classical Attic Greek?
>
> He's more right than wrong (statistically speaking!); I've indicated
> a
> couple second-aorist "middle" verb-forms that still can bear a
> passive
> sense in NT Koine, and I think instances of these same verbs could
> be
> found in 5th-4th-century Attic texts.
>
> > Can someone clear up my confusion?
>
> Hopefully to some extent.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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