Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Medio-passive (was: A Survey)

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Thursday, October 2, 2003, 18:35
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 =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) ===============================================

Reply

Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>