Aorist voice patterns in the diachrony of Greek

Liana Tronci

doi:10.1163/15699846-01802005

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with the aorist voice system in NT Greek and focuses on middle-passive markers, namely middle inflection, e.g. in the middle sigmatic aorist, and affixes -η-/-θη-, in the so-called passive aorist. The research is corpus-based and investigates the occurrences of ca. 1800 verbal items. According to the grammarians, in the NT both middle and passive aorists spread. The present study confirms this observation by providing a comprehensive account of the distribution of these forms, but also shows how they have functionally reorganised. Passive aorists spread at the expense of middle aorists in all kinds of intransitive constructions, namely passive, unaccusative, and reflexive, whereas middle aorists are either found in transitive middles, e.g. possessive, benefactive etc., or occur as deponent verbs in both transitive and intransitive clauses. The parameter transitive vs intransitive appears to be relevant for this functional reorganisation.

Highlights

This paper deals with the verbal category of voice in Koine Greek and focuses on the aorist
In Homeric poems we find pairs of middle and passive aorists derived from the same verb and both occurring in unaccusative structures, e.g. ἐχολώθην/ἐχολωσάμην ‘I became angry’
In the thematic aorists which continued to exist in Classical Greek, middle forms never occurred in passive clauses, in which they were replaced by passive aorists, e.g. (33a); they sometimes occurred in unaccusatives, e.g. (33b), in which passive aorists could occur e.g. (33c), and mostly occurred in middle transitives, e.g. (33d)

Summary

Introduction

This paper deals with the verbal category of voice in Koine Greek and focuses on the aorist. I discuss the case of the 5 verbs, namely ἀποκρίνομαι ‘I reply’, γίνομαι ‘become’, διαλέγομαι ‘I reason’, ἐμβριμάομαι ‘I groan’, χαρίζομαι ‘I gratify’, which occur as both middle and passive aorists in the NT without any difference in syntactic distribution and meaning. The act of washing themselves (ἀπελούσασθε) could imply sanctification (ἡγιάσθητε) and justification (ἐδικαιώθητε): the three verbs “are three descriptions of the one fundamental transformation that has occurred for those who belong to Christ” (Hays 2011: 98) This reading allows us to account for the sigmatic middle ἀπελούσασθε in accordance with the syntactic and semantic values of middle aorists which are attested in the NT as well as in Homeric and Classical Greek. Which semantic roles do the subject and the object display? Are they ‘one who baptises’ vs ‘one who is baptised’ or, rather, ‘one who lets someone get baptised’ vs ‘one who gets baptised’? The answers to these questions are not trivial for Christian religion and theology

Diachrony of voice

Concluding remarks