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Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 19th, 2013, 1:37 pm
by cwconrad
First of all, the term "voice" itself is perhaps the least useful of the terms applied to categories of verbal inflection -- voice doesn't have anything to do with the way a verb "sounds" either to the ears or to the mind. The ancient Greek term διάθεσις, "arrangement" or "disposition" is much more useful term, inasmuch as the inflections to which we are referring indicate the relationship of the action or process or event to the subject of the verb. The so-called "active" voice is really pretty much a "catch-all" common or garden-variety verb form that doesn't specify at all how the action, process, or event relatives to the subject (most verbs with "active" inflection probably are transitive and active, but many are intransitive, some are impersonal, and some (like πίπτω and ἀποθνῄσκω and πάσχω function as if they were passive. The middle-passive inflections and the -θη- inflections found only in the aorist and future tenses both are best understood as indicating some affect of the action, process, or event upon the verb's subject; hence we speak of these "voices" or διαθέσεις as "subject-affected." I've recently suggested that we could do worse that adopt the original Greek term διάθεσις for "voice" and that we should add the adjectives κοινή to refer to the "active" or "catch-all" inflection and the adjective ἑαυτική to the "subject-affected" "middle-passive" and "passive" inflectional patterns.
A new consensus has been in the process of formation over recent years; it's beginning to emerge in the teaching of Classical Greek and barely beginning to emerge in the teaching of Koine Greek, but as yet there is no definitive publication setting forth the emerging consensus as it relates to Hellenistic -- including NT Koine -- usage. For what it's worth, some of the questions and items under consideration regarding Ancient Greek "Voice" are set forth on my web pages entitled "Propositions Concerning Ancient Greek Voice" (
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/GrkVc.html).
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 22nd, 2013, 12:02 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Yes, the term voice is a rather unfortunate term. It has nothing to do with how it "sounds" as the name suggests but it is, for some reason, the Latin grammatical tradition's equivalent of Greek διάθεσις, "disposition" or "arrangement." All these terms, and many others in grammar and linguistics, are unfortunately vague, so it's important to understand what these labels refer to, rather than try to derive what it means from the words chosen for the label.
As for what the term voice refers to, I think the best practice is to use it for the inflectional / morphological forms and use the term diathesis for the more abstract or conceptual notion of how a verb's synactic subject and object relate to the verb's arguments (your "meanings" or "force"; note that the "force" in linguistics relates to declaratory, interrogatory, exclamatory forces). So there are two "voices" in the present indicative and three in the aorist indicative. The traditional names are active, middle, passive. (For those who want a term for the category is that is both middle and passive, the more traditional name is mediopassive rather than "midpassive.") Again, you should understand these categories by looking at the range of phenomenon that they refer to, rather than trying to use the name of labels to define what they are.
One of the best things to come from the recent look at voice is to avoid thinking of diathesis (or your "force" or meanings) in terms of, say, English or our mother tongue, but to under its own logic. For example, who is say that a verb like ἔρχομαι is really "active" as in "I come" or more middle-like as in "I get myself here"? I think the answer has to defer to the Greeks: if Greek marks the form as middle, we ought to understand how it is middle rather than say, "but its meaning seems active, so it must be deponent."
As for Micheal Palmer's statement, while it is true that the aorist middle has some "passive meanings" and the aorist passive as some "middle meanings," the overlap is not complete. There still are some middles which don't take the aorist passives, and many "passives" (esp. from prototypical transitives in the active) that do not take the aorist middle. So there is some difference, but it is not easy to point to. Rather, the distribution of meanings among the forms is much more complicated than either what the traditional names imply or what one might misunderstand from Micheal's comment that anything goes.
But don't worry about the names. It is a fallacy to derive defintions from the names anyway. (These categories many not even admit themselves to being characterized with a single name.) Rather, worry about understanding the categories that the names refer to. There is a benefit to having mnemonic names (lots of people are dissatisfied with the traditional names), but ultimately you have to understand more than the names.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 3:44 am
by RandallButh
Στέφανος ἔγραψεν
As for what the term voice refers to, I think the best practice is to use it for the inflectional / morphological forms and use the term diathesis for the more abstract or conceptual notion of how a verb's synactic subject and object relate to the verb's arguments (your "meanings" or "force"; note that the "force" in linguistics relates to declaratory, interrogatory, exclamatory forces). So there are two "voices" in the present indicative and three in the aorist indicative. The traditional names are active, middle, passive. (For those who want a term for the category is that is both middle and passive, the more traditional name is mediopassive rather than "midpassive.") Again, you should understand these categories by looking at the range of phenomenon that they refer to, rather than trying to use the name of labels to define what they are.
I agree, Stephen, but disagree in execution.
Yes, διάθεσις is the better term for the category. It would probably help Greek students to go directly to that term and bypass English 'voice,' they won't get to collect $200 in either case.
So Greek diathesis has two formal categories in some tenses and three formal categories in other tenses. But I don't recommend calling the morpho-syntactical categories "voices". That word is already defined in English, and it is always more difficult to erase a common, errant meaning, than to create a neologism built on a zero-meaning word. It may be simplest, and better, to say that some tenses have two categories of diathesis (whose FORMS are called ἐνεργητική and μέση ) and some tenses have three categories of diathesis (whose FORMS are called ἐνεργητική, μέση, παθητική). When a student inevitably asks, "is the παθητική like 'passive voice' in English?", the teacher can say "No, the Greek uses this category for many things that are not passive in English, like πορευθῆναι 'going away'."
At the stage of explaining, not naming, the categories, then [κοινή] and [ἑαυτική] become useful because they unite the μέση and παθητική categories, something that the Greeks did in some tenses, and then add the special use of παθητική with transitive verbs as 'passive'.
By the way, shall we call these three κατηγορίαι τῆς μορφῆς, or something like three σχήματα? I have tended to use σχήματα for different classes of forms, like verbs ἀγαπᾶν ποιεῖν πληροῦν.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 10:00 am
by Stephen Carlson
Obviously a Greek naming approach for grammatical meta-language wouldn't use the term voice but the native Greek terms.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 10:55 am
by Paul-Nitz
RandallButh wrote:By the way, shall we call these three κατηγοραὶ τῆς μορφῆς, or something like three σχήματα? I have tended to use σχήματα for different classes of forms, like verbs ἀγαπᾶν ποιεῖν πληροῦν.
Seamus Macdonald, over on Ancient Greek Best Practices group, has shared an open file listing grammatical terms in Greek. I've been adding to it and would like to enter in these new terms. I've also been adding some examples of terms in use. So, a couple of questions:
I very much like σχῆμα, σχήματα for the "shape" or form of contract verbs.
How do you use the term? το "ἐπείνασα" ἐστι ρῆμα τοῦ Ἄλφα σχήματος ?
I'm hesitant about κατηγορή because I can't find it in any dictionary ("κατηγορία" accusation).
How about το γένος, τα γένη τῆς μορφῆς ? Too general?
And again, how would you use it? κατηγορὴ τῆς μορφῆς τοῦ ρῆμα τούτου εστιν παθητική ?
τί δοκεί σοι, Ἰωαννης;
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 11:36 am
by RandallButh
Sorry for the typo.
The phrase was intended to be κατηγορίαι τῆς μορφῆς. Aristotle uses it for logical predications and 'categories'. It's still around in Modern Greek, despite its etymological origin as "accusation". Think of it as 'speaking to the point,' and subsuming a head. On γένος, τὰ γένη, it's already a technical term in grammar for 'gender'. Still, it is a generic word for "kinds" of anything, and we can say things like τρία γένη τῆς διαθέσεως.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 12:04 pm
by RandallButh
How do you use the term? το "ἐπείνασα" ἐστι ρῆμα τοῦ Ἄλφα σχήματος ?
I would more likely say "ἐπείνασα" ἐστιν ῥῆμα τοῦ σχήματος "πεινάσαι πεινᾶν", ἢ τοῦ γελάσαι γελᾶν. Dionysios just quoted real words when he discussed this.
Dionysios:
"περισπωμένων δὲ ῥημάτων συζυγίαι εἰσὶ τρεῖς, ὧν
(α´)
ἡ μὲν πρώτη ἐκφέρεται ἐπὶ δευτέρου καὶ τρίτου προσώπου διὰ τῆς ει
διφθόγγου, οἷον νοῶ νοεῖς νοεῖ·
(β´)
ἡ δὲ δευτέρα διὰ τῆς αι διφθόγγου, προσγραφομένου τοῦ ι, μὴ
συνεκφωνουμένου δέ, οἷον βοῶ βοᾶις βοᾶι·
(γ´)
ἡ δὲ τρίτη διὰ τῆς οι διφθόγγου, οἷον χρυσῶ χρυσοῖς χρυσοῖ."
PS:
And checking just now I saw that he used SXHMATA for different kinds of "compound" verbs having prefixes or suffixes added to the stem to make a new vocab item. So let's drop SXHMATA, too.
Now that I think about it, in Living Koine Greek, Part 2a and 2b, we called the verbs "perispomena rhmata" like D.T.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 2:32 pm
by Paul-Nitz
I get the gist of that quotation from Dionysios, but school me about the key word:
περισποωμένων, περισπωμενα
The turning around of words? from περισπάω... (περισπάσασθαι) ?
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, 3:05 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Paul-Nitz wrote:I get the gist of that quotation from Dionysios, but school me about the key word:
περισποωμένων, περισπωμενα
The turning around of words? from περισπάω... (περισπάσασθαι) ?
Turning around of the accent. It's the circumflex.
Re: Meaning of "voice"
Posted: April 28th, 2013, 2:00 pm
by Paul-Nitz
Stephen Carlson wrote:As for what the term voice refers to, I think the best practice is to use it for the inflectional / morphological forms and use the term diathesis for the more abstract or conceptual notion of how a verb's synactic subject and object relate to the verb's arguments
RandallButh wrote:So Greek diathesis has two formal categories in some tenses and three formal categories in other tenses. But I don't recommend calling the morpho-syntactical categories "voices". That word is already defined in English, and it is always more difficult to erase a common, errant meaning, than to create a neologism built on a zero-meaning word. It may be simplest, and better, to say that some tenses have two categories of diathesis (whose FORMS are called ἐνεργητική and μέση ) and some tenses have three categories of diathesis (whose FORMS are called ἐνεργητική, μέση, παθητική). When a student inevitably asks, "is the παθητική like 'passive voice' in English?", the teacher can say "No, the Greek uses this category for many things that are not passive in English, like πορευθῆναι 'going away'."
At the stage of explaining, not naming, the categories, then [κοινή] and [ἑαυτική] become useful because they unite the μέση and παθητική categories, something that the Greeks did in some tenses, and then add the special use of παθητική with transitive verbs as 'passive'.
By the way, shall we call these three κατηγορίαι τῆς μορφῆς, or something like three σχήματα? I have tended to use σχήματα for different classes of forms, like verbs ἀγαπᾶν ποιεῖν πληροῦν.
Let me try this out and check my understanding.
There are 2 categories of endings in the present and three in the aorist and future:
- ἐνεργητική κατηγορία τῆς μορφῆς -- αἰτῆσαι, αἰτῶ, αἰτήσω, ᾔτησα”
μέση κατηγορία τῆς μορφῆς -- αἰτεῖσθαι, αἰτοῦμαι, αἰτήσομαι, ᾐτησάμην
παθητική κατηγορία τῆς μορφῆς --αἰτηθῆναι, αἰτηθήσομαι, ᾐτηθην,
The respective διάθεσις of these three κατηγορίαι may be one of these διαθέσεις: κοινή, ἑαυτική, παθητική
The κοινή διάθεσις is consistently indicated by the first category, ἐνεργητική κατηγορία τῆς μορφῆς -- αἰτῆσαι. The second and third category may indicate either ἑαυτική or παθητική διάθεσις.
- κοινή διάθεσις signifies a “common” or default sense. In English we would call this the “active voice” sense.
ἑαυτική διάθεσις indicates an emphasis to one degree or another on how the subject is affected. The action may be done very personally by him, to his advantage/disadvantage, or may be done to himself. The extreme degree of affectedness on the subject might indicate an action which in English we would call “passive.”
παθητική διάθεσις is a label used when the verb is clearly, by form and usage, carrying a "passive" idea.