[B-Greek] Older grammars

Vasile Stancu vstancu at clicknet.ro
Wed May 5 10:36:37 EDT 2010


I wonder if grammars of older generations of English could be helpful in
understanding some specific aspects related to ancient Greek. I just noticed
that newer grammar textbooks of my language (Romanian) describe the verb
voices as being just two, i.e., active and passive. When I studied grammar
at school (1960s), I was taught that there were three voices: active,
passive and reflexive.

A texbook of Romanian grammar published in 1966 by the Romanian Academy
identifies the three voices and says, in relation with the reflexive voice:
"This category plays the role which in some languages (old greek, for
instance) is played by the middle voice. This voice shows that the subject
is doing the action with high intensity/interest, that the action he/she is
doing is in his/her own interest". Several examples and explanations are
then given.

Another texbook of Romanian grammar published in 2001 by a group of authors
says that there are two voices: active and passive. Then a category of
"pronominal verbs" (those that used to go under the classification of
"reflexive voice") is defined and the texbook just shows how they are to be
conjugated - no additional explanations regarding special meaning, role,
etc.

The analogy between the Greek middle voice and the Romanian reflexive voice
is also endorsed by various Romanian texbooks of Greek grammar. For
instance, a Greek grammar textbook published in 1872 says, regarding middle
voice: "As for voices, Greek has, besides the active and the passive, the
middle voice which somewhat holds the middle between the active and the
passive, and its significance belongs to the one as well as to the other. It
expresses an action that the subject does and receives at the same time, an
action which he excerts upon himself or a part of himself, as we also say in
Romanian 'he washes himself', 'he washes himself on hands' (Vasile's note:
of course, this rendering is not in full compliance with correct English -
however, for the sake of exemplification, please accept the literal
translation...), with passive form and active meaning. Thus, the middle
voice of the Greeks corresponds to our reflexive verbs".

As I said, I wonder if older English has such 'tools' that might help in
better understanding old Greek. As for me, when I first learned about the
Greek middle voice, there was no surprise: it was just the Romanian
reflexive. And even its formation in Greek: we have it in Romanian formed by
means of reflexive pronouns, and when I see a -μαι -MAI in Greek, I tend to
associate it intuitively with some Greek reflexive noun. I am not aware of
any such relationship having been demonstrated or at least suggested, but
perhaps some others would agree that this is not entirely 'fanciful'.

Vasile Stancu





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