[b-greek] RE: "Retained accusative"? (was: RE: instances of(accusative)objects in passive constructions)

From: Iver Larsen (iver_larsen@sil.org)
Date: Tue Oct 23 2001 - 16:16:50 EDT


Carl wrote:
> Perhaps I've misunderstand the question: did you mean (a) in ALL
> THREE--Active, Middle, and Passive? or (b) in BOTH: Active Middle-Passive?
> Probably (a).

I meant (a).

>
> I think probably this has to be looked at in terms of individual
> verbs, but
> I wonder if there really are many verbs that actually do have aorists of
> all three sorts.

Your examples have been helpful and especially your last sujmmary paragraph.
It looks like one does have to look at the individual verbs. As you say very
few of them in KOINE have anything near a full range of forms.
I was just looking at POREUOMAI today as it occurs in the NT. There are no
active forms (Did they ever exist?). For future tense only the middle forms
are used, and Friberg tags them as D - middle deponent. For aorist tense
only the passive forms are used, and they are tagged as O - passive
deponent. The meaning of all of these appears to be active whether or not
the form is middle or passive. The aorist "passive" imperative POREUQHTI
means "go" and not "be gone". Just like the present "middle-passive"
POREUOU.

Since there are a few verbs that do have the 3-way contrast between active,
middle and passive, I would assume that for these few verbs, we still have
the 3-way distinction in meaning.
I couldn't find many 3-way forms, and it seems you had difficulty finding
them, too.
Just an example in the future:
John 16:13 AKOUSEI - he will hear
Acts 21:22 AKOUSONTAI - they will hear (and take in?) is it intensive?
Middle forms only in Acts.
Luke 12:3 AKOUSQHSETAI - it will be heard

I understand you to say that a passive aorist or future form might as well
function as a middle form in the case where the verb in question is not used
in the middle. You also seem to say that whether an MP form is in fact to be
understood in a passive or middle or even active sense depends on the
context as well as the range of forms of that particular verb.

Is this a reasonably correct understanding?

You suggested that when an MP form is followed by hUPO, it is passive in
meaning. That sounds reasonable. However, I would be surprised if we could
infer anything from an absence of a hUPO. In that case, I think it could
still well be passive, but the implied agent is just not specified. Maybe I
did not understand your statement about hUPO?

Thanks,
Iver Larsen


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