[B-Greek] Lexicography and Deponency
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Nov 2 09:03:23 EDT 2010
Yesterday I weighed in here on a matter that Stephen hasn't raised but
that I think belongs to the same discussion: rationalization of the
pedagogically essential elements of verbs that should be committed to
memory by students in order to grasp the tense-stems at work in each
of the major tense-systems and in the voices: i.e., the "principal parts."
Another item worth addressing, although it is probably even more
difficult to combat than U.S. resistance to the metric system: the
terminology we use to identify the morphological and semantic
categories of the ancient Greek verb. Although Randall suggests that
we simply accept and employ the Greek terms employed by Dionysius
Thrax and other "grammatici antiqui," some of the English terms
might certainly be improved upon (e.g. "tense," "voice," "mood,"
...
But now I want to deal more directly with Stephen's questions about
lemmata, voice-forms, etc.
On Nov 1, 2010, at 1:45 PM, Stephen Carlson wrote:
> I've been contemplating the role of Greek lexicography with teaching,
> so here are some inchoate thoughts for discussion.
>
> Currently, deponent verbs are lexicalized under the first person
> present middle indicative. This means that when a student sees a
> middle voice verb in a text, the student has to figure out whether the
> verb is deponent and has to be looked up under the first person
> present middle, or, if there is an active counterpart, under a first
> person present active form. Thus, the student has to figure more out
> about a verb than its morphology: the student also has to know its
> usage *even to find the right lexical form*.
However desirable a fully-rationalized taxonomy of ancient Greek
verbs might be in the best of all possible worlds, the fact is that
a considerable number of Greek verbs don't conform to a readily-
intelligible conjugational scheme. They have personalities and,
like persons who look very different from different angles, they
won't wear clothes off the rack or fit readily into standard mapping
categories. You have to know each one.
> As many of you know, the concept of deponency has recently been
> questioned in scholarship
Surely you jest!
> (there will be, in fact, an SBL session on
> it even), but it seems to me that even if we move away from discussing
> deponent verb but calling them middle verbs, say, the concept of
> deponency is still ingrained in the lexicons. Ironically, it is only
> the non-deponent middles that have the problem, but the deponents are
> already lexicalized under the middle form, which they should be.
>
> As a result, I've been exploring how a lexicon should handle the new
> perspective on voice. One idea is to lexicalize all middle verbs
> under a middle lexical form, regardless of whether the verb has an
> active counterpart. (And if the middle verb has an active
> counterpart, which many do, then it should be lexicalized separately.)
> For example, in addition to the active LUW λύω ("I loose, release,
> untie"), there would also be a middle LUOMAI λύομαι ("I ransom").
Well, one embarrassing fact about LUOMAI λύομαι is that in NT Koine
it appears only in active and passive usages; LUOMAI λύομαι "ransom"
is archaic. Randall and I had an exchange on this and he chose, despite
the anacronism, to use this in his paradigms of regular verbs primarily
for the reason that it fits easily between the lines of a table of forms.
While I would myself prefer to speak of "middle" verbs when discussing
DUNASQAI δύνασθαι and POREUESQAI πορεύεσθαι, etc., there is in
fact a sizable category of verbs that are primarily used intransitively in
the middle voice-form but are also used secondarily in a transitive causative
sense in the active voice-form, e.g. EGEIRESQAI ἐγείρεσθαι, middle
"wake up, rise up" and EGEIREIN ἐγείρειν, active "rouse from sleep,
raise/make rise" and its near synonym hISTASQAI ἵστασθαι middle
"come to a standstill, stand up" and hISTΑΝΑΙ ἱστάναι "make stand/erect,
bring to a halt." Note that these verbs are fundamentally different from
ordinarily transitive active verbs like POIEIN ποιεῖν that are commonly
used in the middle in a self-benefactive sense: POIEISQAI ποιεῖσθαι.
My inclination would be to use the middle as the lemma for the former
type (intransitive middles) and then list the causative actives next with
a clear note indicating that's what they are (like BDAG's regular
dubious notation for the so-called deponents, "passive in active sense").
> Another issue is whether to lexicalize verbs under the first person
> singular. One disadvantage with it is that all the contract verbs in
> the first person singular all end with a circumflexed omega, so a
> lexicon would need to supplement the lexical form with information to
> indicate whether the verb is an alpha contract, an epsilon contract,
> or an omicron contract. The standard way of doing this has been to
> use uncontracted lexical forms, e.g. AGAPAW ἀγαπάω, even though only
> AGAPW= ἀγαπῶ is found in our literature. The use of an artificial
> form in a lexicon, however, should be avoided.
Amen, One must learn to conjugate the contract verbs, but we really
should avoid cluttering our pedagogical tools with forms never used
by the ancient users of the language.
> The present active infinitive, on the other hand, nicely distinguishes
> the various contract verbs. Non-contract present active infinitives
> end in -EIN -ειν, A-contracts in -A=N -ᾶν, E-contracts in -EI=N -εῖν,
> and O-contracts in -OU=N -οῦν. The perispomenon present active
> infinitives show clearly that a verb is a contract verb and which with
> vowel. Thus, the lexical form for AGAPW= ἀγαπῶ would be AGAPA=N
> ἀγαπᾶν, and the user is immediately clued into the fact that it is an
> alpha contract.
>
> But if one is going to use an infinitive as the lexical form, there is
> a strong temptation for the aorist infinitive. After all, the aorist
> forms often reflect the actual verbal root better than the present.
> For example, the aorist BALEI=N βαλεῖν better reflects that that the
> verbal root is BAL- βαλ- than the present BA/LLEIN βάλλειν, with the
> double lambda. Similarly, LABEI=N λαβεῖν shows that the verbal root
> is LAB- λαβ-, while the present infinitive shows and infixed form,
> LAMBA/NEIN λαμβάνειν. Another benefit is that aorist infinitives
> really can be nicely glossed by the English infinitive form "to X."
> Also, aorist infinitives don't have the augment.
>
> But I see a couple of drawbacks for using aorist infinitives:
>
> 1. Some verbs, e.g., EINAI εἶναι (EIMI/ εἰμί) don't have an aorist
> infinitive, so the present has to be used instead.
>
> 2. Some verbs have multiple aorist infinitives, over time, whether
> due to suppletion (e.g. for TREXW τρέχω, the epic aorist QRECAI θρέξαι
> was later replaced by DRAMEIN δραμεῖν).
>
> 3. Yet the biggest issue that I'm having is that are two non-active
> aorist infinitives, commonly termed the aorist middle infinitive and
> the aorist passive infinitive. Which one should be chosen for the
> lexical form? For example, in Gal 3:10, 13, 4:22, 47, Paul uses the
> word GEGRAPTAI γέγραπται ("it is written"). Should the appropriate
> aorist infinitive for lexicalization be the passive GRAFHNAI γραφῆναι
> or the middle GRAYASQAI γράψασθαι? The fact that Greek distinguishes
> between them forces us to make a decision. Do we lexicalize based on
> the passive or middle aorist based on usage elsewhere? But this loses
> the advantage in being guided solely by morphology,
>
> I'm inclined to believe, that no matter how tempting the aorist
> infinitive is, it seems to me better to lexicalize both actives and
> middles based on the present (whether an infinitive or the common
> first person singular). In this case, "passives" would go under the
> middle, so the treatment is strictly morphological. Go when the MP
> (middle-passive) form GEGRAPTAI γέγραπται is seen, the student should
> look up its meaning under either GRAFOMAI γράφομαι or GRAFESQAI
> γράφεσθαι.
I think I'd make it GRAYAI γράψαι GRAYASQAI γράψασθαι GRAFHNAI γραφῆναι
then a second line GRAFEIN γράφειν GRAFESQAI γράφεσθαι
a third line GRAYEIN γράψειν GRAYESQAI γράψεσθαι
a fourth line GEGRAFENAI γεγραφέναι GEGRAFQAI γεγράφθαι
I'd use the aorist where there is one; of course there are a few verbs like
EINAI εἶναι hHKEIN ἥκειν that must be listed in the present.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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