http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2007-August/044099.html
Why the Middle Voice can represent passive sense
On Aug 16, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Kevin Riley wrote:
... I am still puzzling over how a form that is subject focused - the middle - came also to be used to represent the passive where the subject is not the focus, and need not appear at all. ...I've been meaning to respond to the above question -- or puzzlement -- for several days, but I've decided that I'll forgo a longer and fuller response at this point and try do deal directly with the question why one set of endings associated fundamentally with middle voice, could also be used to represent the passive.
The simple answer is that the middle (or middle-passive) forms (and that's BOTH the μαι/σαι/ται, μην/σο/το endings of the present, imperfect, aorist, future, perfect, and pluperfect -- and a piddling number of non-periphrastic future perfects like κεκλησομαι (not in the GNT) -- AND the -θη- endings in the aorist and future) are all fundamentally marked for subject-affectedness, and this includes verbs and verb-forms where the subject is patient, undergoer, beneficiary or recipient).
When the verb in question is really transitive, then the middle-passive form can have a passive sense because the patient of the process has become the subject of the verb, but in several other cases -- and especially in the case of intransitive verbs -- the middle-passive form simply indicates that the subject is:
- BOTH subject and patient (direct reflexive, e.g., χυραται ο Γοργιας, "Gorgias shaves himself"), or
- BOTH subject and beneficiary or recipient (indirect reflexive, e.g., λυεται ο ιππευς την ιππον, "The rider unties his mare"), or
- BOTH subject and undergoer (intransitive, e.g., εγειρεται το παις, "The child wakes up").
- Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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