Verb – Present medio-passive plural

ObjectivesLearning objectives

• The semantics of ἐκεῖ ‘there’
• How voice relates to deponent verbs
• The morphology of the present medio-passive pl

VocabularyVocabulary

Noteἐκεῖ

The word ἐκεῖ ‘there’ can refer to a place just mentioned in the context or to a place that is distant from the speaker:

NoteGeneral Greek: Voice and deponent verbs

In 7.1.3, we said that there are problems with the traditional definition of voice as a description of the subject’s role in the sentence. The problem is that there are verbs in the so-called active voice with subjects that are not very active. To illustrate, the verb καθεύδω ‘sleep’ has a subject that is not actively doing anything, even though the -ω ending indicates it is in

“active” voice. Examples could be given for middle and passive verbs as well, but the point here is not to critique the label, but to try to give an accurate description of the different forms we find in Greek. A more accurate way to describe voice is to give it a syntactic definition: it is a marking on the verb that introduces, modifies, or deletes the subject. In Syntax B, we will describe this in more detail, but here we introduce another term that has stirred up controversy among Greek grammarians: deponent.

This term refers to the class of verbs that have a middle or passive form but no corresponding active form. For example, you won’t find the verb ἔρχω in Koine Greek. The only form you will find is the medio-passive ἔρχομαι. Traditionally, this term has been defined as also including the idea that middle deponent verbs are equivalent semantically to active voice: “A deponent middle is a middle voice verb that has no active form but is active in meaning ” (Wallace 1996:428). Recent Greek grammarians have critiqued this view, saying that deponent middle verbs are, in fact, middle in meaning (see Campbell 2015:ch. 4 for a discussion). In fact, we have already said that “active voice” itself does not have a meaning where the subject is “active.” In light of this discussion, some Greek grammarians have wanted to throw out the term “deponent” and replace it with some other technical term. However, we have already said that there are also problems with the terms “active”, “middle”, and “passive” in that they do not reflect the nature of the subject. Because the term “deponent” is widely used in the linguistics literature, we do not get rid of the term but simply define it more accurately: it refers to those verbs in Greek with a middle or passive voice that do not have a corresponding active voice form. We do not intend to say anything about how or why these verbs do not have an active voice with the term deponent. For a fuller discussion, see Syntax B.

MorphologyMorphology: Verb – Present medio-passive plural

• Like the sg forms, the med-psv pl forms are similar to their act counterparts.
• For the 1st and 2nd person, the θ marks the med-psv.
• 1st person – κράζ-ομεν, ἐρχ-όμεθα
• 2nd person – κράζ-ετε, ἔρχ-εσθε
• The 3rd person has an o-class theme vowel (like the act) and the final -αι (like the sg med-psv forms).
• 3rd person – κράζ-ουσι(ν), ἔρχ-ονται