Middle Verb/Deponent Verb Parsing

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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Middle Verb/Deponent Verb Parsing

Post by Jonathan Robie »

mikeatnip wrote: December 4th, 2021, 8:21 pm A little "tip" I taught myself while learning Spanish is that verbs should not be thought of as "to do this or that." To help me remember that middle verbs do not mean "to do this or that," I think of verbs as being "to make this or that action happen".
For example, in Spanish, bañarse does not mean "to take a bath," despite most lexicons saying so. It means to make bathing happen. And with the "se" it means I make that action happen to myself, or he makes it happen to himself. Without the "me/te/se," it means I make bathing happen to someone/something else.
So ἔρχομαι does not mean "to come/go." It means "to make coming/going happen." And with the ομαι I know that it means that I am making the coming/going happen to myself. Having no active form makes good sense because I really cannot make coming/going happen to others. (Well, maybe if I point a 12-gauge shotgun at them! :D )
When I was working through Mounce last year and came to his deponent verbs, I think I may have made one of those "Stephen Carlson's Deponent Grimaces." Being a newbie I thought maybe I could be wrong with Greek. Now I realize that I had good reason to grimace. ;)
Maybe those who really know Greek on here can tell me if I am at least halfway thinking correctly about this?
Let me step out on some thin ice here, since I don't consider myself expert on this, do not speak Spanish, and have barely browsed "Voice: Form and Function", edited by Barbara A. Fox and Paul J. Hopper, and "The Middle Voice", by Suzanne Kemmer, both gifts from Carl Conrad, with his handwritten notes. I haven't even read Rachel Aubrey's thesis on this subject, or Rutger Allen's book.

Maybe Rachel Aubrey, Mike Aubrey, Steve Runge, Stephen Carlson, Barry, etc. can correct me where I am wrong about Greek or linguistics or both. Perhaps you can correct me on Spanish.

In Spanish, which I do not speak, I believe "se" is a "middle diathesis marker", described on page 3 of Fox and Hopper this way:
Spanish se

The particle se in Spanish is a good example of a middle diathesis marker, it appears in the reflexive and reciprocal, as well as in constructions with passive and impersonal senses, and is used as a detransitivizer.
This book argues that se is middle, and argues against understanding this as the se-passive.

These are all examples where the agent or patient of the verb is a little complicated, where it's not as simple as "X is the subject" or "X is the direct object." Some languages, including Spanish, have morphological markers for this. If you study how those morphologically marked forms work in various languages, you find that there are different categories, but what they have in common is: (1) The subject of the verb is affected, often changed in some way and (2) the details of the action in terms of agent/patient are not in focus. Some languages do not have morphological markers for this, but still have syntactic forms that are middle.

So in Spanish:

bañar (to bathe) → Yo baño al perro. I wash the dog. Active.
bañarse (to bathe oneself) → Yo me baño. I bathe myself. Reflexive.

In English, consider sentences like these. I think these are all examples of the "syntactic middle" in English, which is not morphologically marked.

I showered today. This is active in form, but it means that I turned on a faucet and stepped into a place where I "was showered with water". I am not actively showering myself. I am not exactly "being showered". Who or what was showering me? That's not in focus here. I was changed in some way - I am now cleaner.

I flew to San Antonio. This is active in form, but I was not the pilot. It would be equally accurate to say "I was flown to San Antonio", but that implies that I was an unwilling participant, or at least not actively involved in the choice to fly there. I am not exactly the agent, but I am not entirely the passive patient either. The pilot is not in focus. I was changed in some way. I am now in San Antonio.

This screw screwed in easily. This is active in form, but the screw didn't exactly screw itself in. Exactly how it came to be screwed in is not in view. The screw is affected, it is changed, it is now screwed in. In English, this kind of usage is often adverbial.

This coffee tastes great. Who is doing the actual tasting here? Isn't the coffee being tasted by someone who comes to the conclusion that the flavor of the coffee is great? "Tastes" is neither properly active nor properly passive in meaning in this sentence.

"The soup that eats like a meal." An advertisement. We all understand what this means, don't we? But "eat" is neither properly active nor properly passive in meaning in this sentence.

In languages where the middle is morphologically marked, verbs in certain semantic domains are middle-only because of the meaning of the verb. Of course, meaning changes over time, and verb forms can be fossilized, so sometimes the form no longer matches the current meaning. Or sometimes, as in English, syntactic middle continues to exist in a language that does not mark the middle morphologically.

Carl says that the medio-passive forms in Greek do not distinguish middle from passive, so you have to consider the meaning of the word and the context. But they are not active in Hellenistic Greek. He points to semantic domains where they occur, language development over time, and relates the development of Greek to other Indo-European languages.

There. I probably got some things wrong there. Let me sit back and wait to be corrected. Maybe Stephen Carlson will grimace at me.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
mikeatnip
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Re: Middle Verb/Deponent Verb Parsing

Post by mikeatnip »

The resources listed in this thread agree with what I was feeling about deponency; a "subject-affectedness marker" makes a lot of sense. But I must confess that I am guilty of Ps. 131b in this matter: οὐδὲ ἐπορεύθην ἐν μεγάλοις οὐδὲ ἐν θαυμασίοις ὑπὲρ ἐμέ.
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Middle Verb/Deponent Verb Parsing

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jonathan Robie wrote: December 5th, 2021, 3:19 pm In Spanish, which I do not speak, I believe "se" is a "middle diathesis marker", described on page 3 of Fox and Hopper this way:
….
There. I probably got some things wrong there. Let me sit back and wait to be corrected. Maybe Stephen Carlson will grimace at me.
:D I do find the Romance “reflexive” verbs a useful analog for thinking about the middle. I should note that German, which you speak, also has reflexive verbs, with sich.* Perhaps those are worth contemplating.

* Swedish has some passive-only verbs. In fact, it is even arguable that English has some “deponents” as in: “She was rumored to be on the Nobel Prize shortlist.” But there isn’t an active verb “to rumor somone.”
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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