Re: Medio-passive (was: A Survey)

On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 09:51 , Rob Haden wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 18:48:49 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> [big snip]
>
>> Passive forms in all IE languages are secondary developments.
>
> Hmm... now I have some more questions!
>
> What causes a language's speakers to develop a distinction between middle
> and passive?
>
> Conversely, what causes a language's speakers to lose a distinction
> between
> the two?

Good questions - I only wish I knew the answers  :)

> Is it more common to have a split between active and medio-passive, or
> some
> other distinction?
We need a language statistician to answer that.

> It seems to me that active and middle/medio-passive are synonymous
> with "transitive" and "intransitive," respectively.  What do you think?
No - both the Greek middle voice & the modern Romance reflexives can
take direct objects, i.e. can be transitive:

tas kheiras louomai.
je me lave les mains.

Ray
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