Re: Medio-passive (was: A Survey)

--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 12:31 ,
> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
>
> > --- Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
> >
> >>> Active - Robert cooks (the soup).
> >>> Middle - The soup cooks.
> >>> Passive - The soup is being cooked (by
> >>> Robert).
> >>
> >> It seems to me that the Middle and Passive
> >> examples are more closely
> >> related to each other than either are to the
> >> Active.
> >
> > That's often the way of it. In IE languages,
> > the passive developed from the middle, for
> > example.
>
> Yep - the evidence from ancient Greek &
> Sanskrit point to
> PIE having an active and a medio-passive voice.
> There is no evidence of distinct passive.
What's more, -r seems to be a common sign of that
voice. Celtic and archaic Latin have -ter (I
think) and -tur for the impersonal (passive in
later Latin). Hittite has -ri (eshari = he sits
(himself)); Tocharian has -r (säkatär = spreads
(itself) out).

Padraic.


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