[B-Greek] Ancient Greek Voice Forms
John Sanders
john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Thu Apr 21 22:31:46 EDT 2011
Dear Professor Dr. Mike Aubrey,
Your posting to the Rev. Bryant J. Williams III on “Middle Voice” has caught
my attention and I would wish to make some comments. I do so with some
reluctance, as I am self-taught and self-learned as to classical and koine
Greek. Even so, I am prompted to make the following comments:
1) I have no disagreement with your description of “voice,” but I would
characterize it slightly different. “voice ,” as it relates to Greek, and
English as an extension for comparative purposes, represents two different
relationships. One relationship is “active-passive” and the other is
“active-middle.”
The “active-passive” relationship is a sense of the verb in its relation to
the subject. “Active” is the sense of the verb from the subject to its
object. “Passive” is the sense of the verb from its agent (or implied
agent) to the subject. I have implied that the domain is limited to
transitive verbs, and from a practical standpoint this is accurate as there
are no passive constructions from intransitive verbs. One can extend the
domain to include intransitive verbs, but its rather trivial as there are no
intransitive counterparts to the relationship.
The “active-middle” comparison will have a domain that consists of both
transitive and intransitive verbs. In this comparison the “active voice”
designates the subject as unmarked and the “middle” by comparison marks the
subject in some manner. English has no “middle voice” and only the unmarked
“active voice.”
As you have indicated, English constructs the “passive” from the “active
voice” by substituting an agent (or implied agent) in place of a direct
object. Greek is similar, but it generally uses the “middle voice” to
construct the “passive,” also by substituting an agent or implied agent in
place of an accusative.
Voice, therefore indicates some form of relationship between the verb and
the subject.
2) You have written:
English has no middle voice. The English -self is not middle. It's
reflexive. Middles and reflexives are not the same thing. The closest
English get to the middle voice is not the reflexive -self, but certain
constructions like: John closed the door vs. The door closed. Or: Henry
frightened Silvia vs. Silvia frightens easily. The latter in each case is
the closest we can get in English to the middle voice (cf. Pullum &
Huddleston, Cambridge Grammar of the English Language[Cambridge, 2002],
307-8).
That raised my eyebrows and provided the impetus to write this posting. It
gave me the feeling of a musty room filled with linguists having a long
winded, jargon laden conversation. And that jargon laden, long winded
conversation led them down a rabbit hole with curiouser and curiouser
allusions to language.
Theoretically, I would venture, what can be said in one language can be said
in another. If both languages have forms with similar meaning, even if not
completely congruent with one another, then we would substitute one form for
the other. If one language does not have a form with a similar meaning,
then something else needs to be done. We can modify the form in some
manner, perhaps simple near forms or perhaps complex constructions, or we
can substitute narrative, perhaps even extended narrative to convey the
meaning intended. But if there is no form in one language that corresponds
to form in another language, then it does not exist and it is misleading to
suggest a simple unadjusted form in some mysterious and mystical manner can
suggest an idea of the missing form.
English active intransitive verbs do not, in any fashion, represent the
Greek middle voice. They do, on the other hand, represent, and represent
very well, the Greek counterpart of active intransitive verbs, which is not
middle.
How then can we reconstruct the feeling of the Greek middle voice in
English, which has no middle voice. The idea of “middle voice” is uncommon
with English speakers, if it does exist and we will not recognize it as
such.
I am reminded of times when in my household something electrical goes awry.
My dear wife will come up to me and say, “my dear husband, the husband that
use to say he was an engineer, go back to the basics.” That is good advice.
What are the basics that we wish to look at in Greek for an idea of “middle
voice.” It is the Greek verbal form. Both the “active” and the “middle”
form consist of the verbal root plus a pronominal ending (or implied
pronominal ending). The endings differ.
First, I would look at the unmarked voice. The English voice represents the
Greek “active voice” quite well and does not need any modification. But it
is not completely congruent with the Greek. So, just as an experiment, let
us add an English pronoun to the verb. Using your examples, we would have:
John, he closed the door.
The door, it closed.
Henry, he frightened Silvia.
Silvia, she frightens easily.
No difficulties, it is redundant, though. But as I look at the sentences, I
can imagine that adding the pronoun can give more flexibility to the
location of the verb. As an example, “John the door he closed.” It is not
English, but it is understandable. It works here because the pronoun has
gender which is shared with the subject but not with the object. This is
sufficient for what I am looking for; let us go back to the basics.
The Greek “middle voice” is constructed on the basis as the Greek “active”
but with a different set of pronominal endings. This different set is some
fashion promotes an intensiveness of the subject vis-à-vis the verb. My
first inclination for the English is to add “-self” to the pronoun. But you
have written “The English –self is not middle, it’s reflexive. Middles and
reflexives are not the same thing.”
Fair enough, so we should look elsewhere. But before we do so, perhaps it
would be useful if we put “-self” to the test, even the pronouncements of
the great Aristotle were put to the test to verify what he had pronounced.
I begin with a modification of one our sentences:
John washed himself.
That looks like a closer, very much reflexive. But one should recall that
relative position of the noun to its verb is important in English. That is,
if a noun is positioned post-verb, it is an object of some form; and if it
is positioned pro-verb it is a subject. We have put our pronoun post-verb.
The middle is subject connected, not object connected. So let us move the
pronoun to a pre-verb position.
John himself washed his own car.
“-self” is reflexive, but it is reflexive to the pronoun and not through the
verb. It is only when the augmented pronoun is in an object position does
it reflect through the verb back to the subject. When the augmented pronoun
is positioned pre-verb, it is reflexive to the subject, but not through the
verb. We would tend to call this intensiveness, and that is one quality (or
should I say one of the principle effects of the locus) of the middle voice.
Neither the suffixed pronoun nor the verbal root have “middleness” embedded
in some mystical way within the phoneme. It is true that the middle is a
bound form, but it is only through the usage that it has “middleness.” English
has no middle form, so what we are looking for is something that will in
some manner mark the subject. This is one way and will represent a certain
class of Greek middle usage.
I am not suggesting we use this to translate middle voice, only an attempt
to understand and get a grip on it. I think we tend to make it more
complex, more inscrutable than it need be. I also think this is much more
representative of the Greek middle voice than trying to pawn off the English
active intransitive verb as in some manner giving the spirit of the middle.
To conclude, I would suggest that the Greek middle voice is a cultural relic
of an age long since gone. We ourselves do not use a middle in modern
English, we do not find it culturally useful nor particularly adaptable to
our modern commercial environment.
PS. China has a “Great Wall” which restricts access to those internet
sites that are pornographic or seditious. Previously I was unable to access
your website (one could presume you were either pornographic or seditious).
But now, thankfully, we can access your website (I thank you for having
mended your ways). I do enjoy and learn much from what you write. Thank
you for effort and diligence.
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 1:48 AM, Michael Aubrey <mga318 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Would you please repeat your reply to Mark in English? :)))))) or should
> I say
>
> >> in Greek? :)))))
>
> I can try, but I can't make any promises...this is a difficult subject to
> discuss without a technical vocabulary.
>
> >> Active usually has the Subject performing the action, while Passive
> usually has
> >> the Subject receiving the action. I take "Subject Affectiveness" to mean
> that
> >> the "focus is on the subject's relationship to the action or state of
> the verb.
>
> That's a decent paraphrase of what I said.
>
> >> It seems that the Middle is some what like the Action and Passive voices
> >> involved together. If Carl is correct in the history of the language,
> then the
> >> Passive was later separated from the Middle-Passive to reflect the
> receiving of
> >> the action upon the Subject.
>
> Yes and no. We need to be careful here in what we mean by "passive." There
> is no unique passive voice. The -QH forms were never limited to merely
> passive meaning even as early as Homer. Allan demonstrates that in Homer,
> the central uses of the -QH were the canonical passive (the demoting of the
> Subject to a by-phrase and promoting of the object to the subject position)
> and the spontaneous process/event middle. But it was already spreading to
> body motion middles and mental process middles. It needs to be emphasized
> here that the canonical passive *function* is a subset of middle usage: the
> promoting of the affected object to the subject position could be considered
> subject affectedness par excellence. That is to say: there is no
> *morphologically marked* passive voice for Classical or Koine Greek.
>
> >> This created a situation in which there was less
> >> use of the Middle to reflect a "reflexive" or other uses than in
> previous
> >> generations of the language. This is especially true of Koine since it
> was in a
> >> state of flux during the main period of the use, 200 BC-200 AD. The
> Byzantine
> >> Period would reflect the development of the changes from Classical and
> Koine.
>
> This is historically wrong. At no point in time was reflexivity a prominent
> use of the middle. Albert Rijksbaron's The Syntax and Semantics of the Greek
> Verb is a useful starting point for this and Allan's book on middle voice
> makes this superbly clear (dissertation version here:
> http://dare.uva.nl/en/record/108528).
>
> >> It seems to me that English, especially in the US, has gone the same way
> in
> >> reflecting the predominance of Action Verbs over against Passive Verbs.
> We could
> >> also add the demise of the 2nd Person Pronouns, Thee/Thou/Thy/Thine,
> into the
> >> mix. Thus, the Middle Voice, even in English, is really only used with
> the
> >> addition of the suffix, "-self" and its plurals form, "-selves."
>
> English has no middle voice. The English -self is not middle. It's
> reflexive. Middles and reflexives are not the same thing. The closest
> English get to the middle voice is not the reflexive -self, but certain
> constructions like: John closed the door vs. The door closed. Or: Henry
> frightened Silvia vs. Silvia frightens easily. The latter in each case is
> the closest we can get in English to the middle voice (cf. Pullum &
> Huddleston, Cambridge Grammar of the English Language[Cambridge, 2002],
> 307-8).
>
> At this point, I should emphasize that Greek and English have two opposed
> and completely different types of voice systems. English has a
> Active-Passive system. It's derivational: the passive is derived
> syntactically and morphologically from the active voice. Greek does not have
> such a system and cannot be equate to such a system. Greek has an
> "Active"-Middle System, where both "voices" are basic. Neither can be
> derived from the other. Klaiman's Grammatical Voice(Cambridge, 1991) gives
> an extremely useful discussion of this point.
>
> The problem is that the term "voice" is used for a variety of grammatical
> systems in a variety of languages. If you look at what's called voice in a
> language like English, compared to voice in a language like Greek, compared
> to a language like Tagalog (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_grammar#Trigger_.28voice_.2F_focus.29),
> compared to a language like Ojibwe (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct%E2%80%93inverse_language), compared to
> a language like Dyirbal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipassive_voice),
> you'll find that voice is a relatively useless term as soon as more than one
> language is involved in the discussion (in our case, English and Greek).
>
> In an ideal world, we wouldn't use the English word voice to refer to Greek
> at all in order to hopefully avoid this confusion. Personally, I would
> advocte going back to the Greek diathesisfor talking about Greek's
> active-middle system.
>
> >> This would also be reflected in the differences in spelling, e.g. color
> vs
> >> colour, Savior vs Savior, judgement vs judgment, etc. The pronunciation
> of
> >> certain words, etc. potato, tomato, INsurance vs inSURance, schedule
> (skedule)
> >> vs schedule (shedule), etc. The schemes reflect not only regional, e.g.
> "Y'all"
> >> vs "You all," but also national dialectical differences, British vs
> American,
> >> e.g. "boot" (trunk) vs. "boot" (a type of shoe); "torch" (flashlight) vs
> "torch"
> >> (a long stick with fire/flame on one end).
>
> Perhaps, but that's entirely suppositional. I wouldn't make such a claim
> about English syntax without significant data. Pullum and Huddleston, the
> most comprehensive grammar of English available says nothing about dialectal
> variation on the subject either in the two pages where middles are discussed
> (cited above) or their significantly larger section on reflexives
> (1483-1499).
>
> I would encourage you to sit down and read through Rutgar Allan's
> dissertation: http://dare.uva.nl/en/record/108528
>
> Mike Aubrey
> http://evepheso.wordpress.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Aubrey" <mga318 at yahoo.com>
> To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 8:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ancient Greek Voice Forms
>
>
> > Well, if you're going to redefine a technical term so dramatically, then
> none
> of them. But you're over extending a term that has a precise meaning.
> >
> > Subject affectedness refers to predications where the subject is ‘the
> locus of
> the principle effects of the verbally denoted action’ (Klaiman 1991: 106).
> >
> > Mike Aubrey
> > http://evepheso.wordpress.com
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
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>
--
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
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