[B-Greek] Voice: Distinguishing a Middle from a Passive

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Nov 13 09:26:15 EST 2007


Interesting perspective. I like much of what you say. I'll just add  
notes here and there.

On Nov 13, 2007, at 8:49 AM, John Sanders wrote:

> It is with interest that I read the various postings on voice, but  
> sometimes it appears that those postings can be somewhat confusing  
> to those just learning Koine Greek.

The beginner, I fear, is always going to have problems with the  
ancient Greek middle voice.

> I do not know if I can be any clearer, but I would like to add some  
> commentary.
> When we begin to discuss "middle voice" and "passive voice",  
> especially for us beginners, it may be instructive to define one of  
> the terms first.   I believe "passive" is the easier to define, so I  
> will begin there.  I believe my definition is accurate and correct,  
> but it may be disappointing to those seeking philosophical  
> obfuscation.

God knows I don't seek philosophical obfuscation, but I do think that  
one needs to distinguish FORM (active, middle, passive) and FUNCTION,  
and I do think also that we need to be clear about what we mean when  
we use the term "active" with respect to intransitive verbs -- a  
practice that can, I think, be very confusing.

>  To understand the "passive", one should begin with the "active".   
> An example of an "active" construction is a noun in the Nominative  
> Case, a verb in the any mood and tense in the Active Voice, and a  
> noun in the Accusative Case.   The Nominative "verbs" the  
> Accusative.  The verb needs to be transitive.  The "passive" is now  
> defined as the taking the Accusative noun and putting it in the  
> Nominative Case, transforming the verb into its Middle Voice  
> counterpart, and transforming the "active" Nominative case noun into  
> an adverbial (often a Dative Case noun, other times "hUPO" with the  
> noun in the Genitive Case).   Now the Nominative "is being verbed",  
> with the adverbial being the agent of the "verbing".
>
> An example using English to represent the Greek:
>
> Active:  I 'baptize' you.
>
> Passive:  You 'are being baptized' by me.
>
> The words between the '  ' represent the Greek verb form.

Which Greek verb form means "You are being baptized" by me: is it  
BAPTIZOMAI? What if BAPTIZOMAI is used without hUP' EMOU? Is hUP' EMOU  
implied (or hUPO TINOS)?

>  The first observation we should make is that this definition does  
> not define the Middle Voice verb.  It defines the relationship  
> between two nouns:  in the "active voice" the relationship is  
> between the Nominative Case noun and Accusative Case noun, in the  
> "passive voice" the relationship is between the Nominative Case Noun  
> and an oblique case noun.

I'm inclined to think that starting with the active-passive usage of  
transitive verbs will ultimately not really help much with  
understanding middle voice. There's an immense (I think it's pretty  
big) problem involved in intransitive verbs that are active in voice- 
form, e.g. BAINW, EIMI -- to name a couple of the oldest and most  
important of Greek verbs.

>  When we look at the Middle Voice, we quickly see that its range of  
> use is with both intransitive verbs and passive verbs.    It can be  
> speculated that in an early phase of PIE (Proto Indo-European) that  
> a proto-active voice represented transitive verbs and a proto-middle  
> voice represented intransitive verbs.
>
> Looking at intransitive verbs, one can imagine that the Nominative  
> case noun in the Middle Voice began to be considered as marked (or  
> emphasized) vis-à-vis the Nominative Case in the Active Voice (the  
> Nominative does not need to share one's attention with an Accusative  
> case noun).   After, say a thousand years (40 generations or so) a  
> shift takes place in PIE and the PIE speakers no longer have the  
> strong association of Active Voice with transitive verbs and Middle  
> Voice with intransitive verbs, but rather begin to associate the  
> Middle Voice with some type of emphasis on the subject in some  
> general way.  At this stage they begin to associate the adverbial  
> construction with the Middle Voice verb, creating the Passive  
> Voice.  This helps to associate transitiveness with the Middle  
> Voice, further weakening any association between Middle Voice and  
> intransitive verbs. So begins the beginning of how we now think of  
> the Middle Voice.
> I do not know if that scenario took place or not, but one can still  
> use it to think about the Middle Voice and its usage.
>
> In other words, I would think that, unless an accusative case is  
> involved in the construction, a Middle Voice form of a verb ought to  
> be thought of as either intransitive (default case) or passive (if  
> accompanied by an appropriate adverbial or if context should require  
> such a reading).
>
> In other words, if I saw the form BAPTIZOMAI, without any adverbial  
> complement, I would prefer the intransitive "I am baptized" to the  
> passive "I am being baptized."

I think I'd prefer "I get baptized" as expressing the ambivalence of  
BAPTIZOMAI with its range of senses "I bathe myself/wash" to "I submit  
to washing by someone."

It's an interesting scenario for the evolution of Greek voice  
morphology and usage from PIE. I can't say it's wrong, but I have to  
say that I'm not convinced that the middle morphology was ever used  
exclusively for intransitive verbs; it certainly isn't used  
exclusively for intransitive verbs in the earliest extant texts (Homer).

My own sense, after wrestling with the problems encountered in making  
sense of ancient Greek voice morphology and usage for one decade, is  
that they do not lend themselves much to simplification.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at ioa.com or cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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