Re: Medio-passive (was: A Survey)

--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> > the -r passive; though one could
> > argue (and I think successfully) that the -r
> > passive is simply a remnant of the Latin...
> One could indeed, for that is what the Latin
> '3rd sing. passive'
> once was - the impersonal form still found in
> the Britto-Gallic
> languages.   It's one of several isoglosses
> that have led many to think in terms of
> an 'Italo-Celtic' language family.
Yep. I think that, perhaps, the learned form and
the native form may have served to strengthen and
reinforce the -r in the face of esser + PP, thus
allowing it to survive. On the other hand, I
could simply wave me magic wand and say "the
bards did it!", considering that throughout
history they have introduced any number of
foreign and archaic grammatical forms (for their
own pleasure). A few of them made it into the
common language. On the third hand, if the bards
took up or continued using the -r forms, then it
could easily be injected into normal speech at
any time.

> The Latin passive was a secondary formation
> derived partly by extending the impersonal -r;
> and it never
> extended beyond tenses formed on the infectum
> ("present
> stem").  The perfect tenses were formed, as you
> know, analytically with verb 'to be" as
> auxiliary.
Yes. I think the Kerno must then have dropped the
idea of -r = passive at some point. Even in the
few verbs that have the Látin ending (-toer,
rather than the presumably native -oer), the
usual meaning is impersonal; while the passive is
secondary.

I don't remember now why I gave it two different
endings.

Any thoughts on the ethical dative in Brithenig
and other British Romance?

Padraic.



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