Re: Middle voice

On Fri, 25 Sep 1998, Pablo Flores wrote:

> A question to whoever knows out there:
> What is "middle voice" in verbs?
>
> I know what active and passive voice are, but this is something I've never
> imagined. I don't know where I read about it, or what language was mentioned
> to have it. If someone could answer and give me an example in any language,
> I'd be grateful.
>
> --Pablo Flores
>
The best answer will come from Raymond Brown, expert in ancient Greek, for
whom the Middle Voice was common.  He explained it to me once, about six
months ago, but I'm still pretty dense.  I still think that the Latin
deponent is some kind of hold over from an IE middle voice, but I recall
that Ray set me straight about that as well.  Too bad I'm at school and
away from my brilliant book of linguistic terms by Trask.  I wonder if Old
English impersonal verbs are some kind of development from a Germanic
"middle voice," but Germanic has some features in it that are uniquely its
own, unshared by other IE languages.  The impersonal verbs occur only in
the third person and take a dative object; they are usually used by verbs
of feeling, thinking, having the impression that, regretting:

Me thinketh hit hefigtime for aenig otherum menn
"To me it seems [that it is] difficult for any other man..."

Me reweth, Marie, thy faire rod
"Me it pains, Mary, your fair face "

Hmmm.  Not doing so very well here.  I don't think the impersonals have
much to do with a middle voice, which is actually somewhere between
a passive and an active, and which may have contributed, I think, to
some of the deponents in Latin.  Ray will jump all over me for this.

Ray?

Actually, the use here of the dative in such OE verbs reminds me strongly
of certain developments in ergative languages where the dative is used for
subjects that think, feel, presume, etc.  Matt's Tokana utilizes this
development.  Matt, was this an original construction for you or does it
occur in natural languages?   Me feeling sad, to me feels sad.  If I
remember this correctly, do you think that Germanic is making use of a
buried ergative system in IE?  Or have I got this wrong again?

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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

                        Mr. Book: "Shut it down!"
                        _Dark City_

                         Christof: "Cue the sun!"
                        _The Truman Show_

Tehwo tsema brondi laz obil hea nomai pendo
"Summer like a white sword hangs over the land."
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