Re: mediopassive voice: huh?

On Thursday, December 11, 2003, at 07:18 AM, Wesley Parish wrote:

> Quoting Robert Jung <RobertMJung@...>:
>
>> What is the mediopassive voice? What are its functions; examples too
>> please.
>
> The mediopassive voice is a voice that covers both passive uses:
> I was seen; I wasn't injured; I will not be overcasked!
>
> and middle uses:
> I saw myself; I didn't injure myself; I will not overcask myself!
> We saw ourselves; we didn't injure ourselves; we will not overcask
> ourselves!
Yep - the mediopassive is not, strictly speaking, _a_ voice: it's a
conflation
of two voices:
1. passive - a Wesley gives above and, I guess, we're all familiar with.

2. middle - which can be a directly reflexive as Wesley gives; but the
reflexive
is often indirect ("I'll get me a horse" - as they say on old time
Westerns) and
sometimes implies the action is done for advantage, or disadvantage, of
the subject
in some vague way.  Indeed, it has very much the same sort of semantic
range as
reflexive verb in modern Romance langs.

(There was a thread about the middle voice earlier this year.)

the term 'mediopassive' is used particularly in relation to the ancient
Greek
verbal system:
- moods, tenses participles & infinitives in the future & aorist aspects
used
distinct forms for the middle and the passives voices;
- moods, tenses participles & infinitives in the durative ('present stem')
and
perfective aspects used a single set of endings which had both middle &
passive
meanings, hence 'mediopassive'.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================