Voice Terminology

Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Stephen Hughes »

MAubrey wrote:I don't teach Greek and, well, to be honest, don't want to teach Greek.
I get that, but sometimes the need of the situation requires the action. I never meant for Greek to be any more than my personal reading.

Πρὸ πάντων εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῳ καὶ ὑμῖν ἱκετεύσουσιν αὐτῳ ὑπὲρ ἐμου, δοξάζων τῷ ἐπιχορηγήσαντι τὰ δέοντά μοι ὑστερήσαντι πληκτρολογείσθαι πάλιν Ἑλληνίστι.

Συμφωνῶν δὲ τοῖς ὑπὸ Αὐβρηΐου εἰρημένοις, ἀθελήτως διδάασκω.

ἡ ἐκκλησία μὲν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ κωμοπόλει ἡ ἐπικαλουμένη ὑπόγειος ἐπισυνάγει κατὰ τόπον (σχέδον δέκα καὶ τρεῖς ἢ δέκα καὶ τεσσάρσας γνωστοὺς τόπους), καὶ οὐδεὶς τῶν ποιμένων οὐδέπω ἁνεθρέψαντο παρὰ τοὺς πόδας θεολογικοῦ παιδευτοῦ. ὅλως δὲ ἐν τῷ νῦν παροικεῖν μου, οὐ εὗρον οὐδένα τῶν ἐντοπίων ἀδελφῶν διδάσκόντων Ἑλληνικὴν, τὸν δὲ ἐγγύτατον οἶμαι διδασκάλοντα τὴν γλώσσην ἀπέχεσθαι ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως διακόσια καὶ πεντήκοντα χιλιόμετρα. μὴ ἐμοῦ διδάασκοντος ὀλίγον, οὐθένος.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Mark Lightman
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Joined: May 6th, 2011, 6:30 pm

Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Mark Lightman »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Συμφωνῶν δὲ τοῖς ὑπὸ Αὐβρηΐου εἰρημένοις, ἀθελήτως διδάασκω.
ναί, φίλε Στέφανε, πάνυ γε! τοὺς γὰρ καλοὺς λόγους σου ἀναγινώσκων, μάνθανω ἔγωγε. καλὸς δὲ συγγραφεὺς εἶ σὺ καὶ διδάσκολος! ἐλπίζω οὖν πάλιν ἡμῖν σε γράψειν Ἑλληνιστί. ἔρρωσο, φίλτατε!
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

RandallButh wrote:
Do you have any ideas about how to bring that out practically in teaching?
It always helps to ask how a child will use and grow into the use of the form. When the little kid first walks down the dusty alley she may be saying πορεύομαι. When jumping up and down in some game ἄλλομαι. thus, she frames her reality.

For the theoretician, this is where cognitive linguistics and chaos theory intersect with language pedagogy. You gotta love this, because we are this.



PS: But would she say *τύπτομαι στρατιώτην. I think not.
(I think I saw "τύπτομαι στρατιώτην" offered somewhere above.)
Dr. Buth, the problem I have with this is that we are not children and we don't learn like children do. And why wouldn't a child say this, say, in the context of a game, and in a linguaculture in which the "middle voice" is in use? I've heard even very young children use some pretty complicated syntax...
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
RandallButh
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by RandallButh »

The question, Barry, is not whether some adult does or does not learn like a child, but how does the child develop whatever syntax is being hypothesized. Does the theory work for a language user, and for an unsophisticated language user? The point about cognitive linguistics is that a general mapping strategy is part of the language acquisition process and must be included in the 'meaning' or 'syntax' of a language. In the process, a language can include internal contradictions and restrictions that an outside systematization would 'correct'. This is part of the force that drives language change. This also creats blurred categories or difficult to define categories. In any case, a child saying πορεύομαι is going to have a concrete reality that is neither passive nor deponent nor exceptional and it must be part of the consideration for the adult language philosopher.

This brings us to *τύπτομαι τὸν στρατιὼτην. For the word τύπτειν it would appear that τὐπτεσθαι is commonly used passively. It looks to me like this is one of the words that has developed a natural restriction where the middle is not used. in other words it is not like αἰτεῖσθαι and αἰτεῖν.

The question for adult philosophers is whether examples of *τύπτεσθαἰ τινα τὸν ἄνθρωπον can be found? (i.e unpacking the abstract statement, middle forms of τύπτεσθαι for a doer/subject to control an accusative patient *αὐτὴ τύπτεται τὸν στρατιώτην 'she is hitting the man.') If not, then we have just discovered another little idiosyncracy of Greek.

It's not a question of children controlling complex syntax, the child will certainly happily say αἰτοῦμαι πλεῖον τοῦ μέλιτος. θελω θέλω θέλω. Maybe they might try θέλομαι as a neologism, but I think not, I wouldn't expect it. (Of course, βούλομαι would be spoken by the child in the middle, but it is probably too desiderative for the context of a temper tantrum.)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Stephen Carlson »

RandallButh wrote:The question for adult philosophers is whether examples of *τύπτεσθαἰ τινα τὸν ἄνθρωπον can be found?
LSJ gives two examples in Herodotus, apparently with the meaning "beat oneself [i.e. mourn] for a person."
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
RandallButh
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
RandallButh wrote:The question for adult philosophers is whether examples of *τύπτεσθαἰ τινα τὸν ἄνθρωπον can be found?
LSJ gives two examples in Herodotus, apparently with the meaning "beat oneself [i.e. mourn] for a person."
Thank you, Stephen. I haven't done a search.
This supports the proposal since that is a different meaning and idiom, something like κόπτεσθαι, and it does not involve the accusative as the object of the hitting. That is easily mapped by a language user/child/learner as a different node and nexus of experiences and "meaning" with a different formal chunk of the language.
cwconrad
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
cwconrad wrote:I taught the traditional account myself when I taught first-year Greek before I retired twelve years ago -- but I would not teach it now.
cwconrad wrote:I believe that students can learn to read and understand Greek texts with the various voice usages without analyzing the constructions. Perhaps it doesn't matter that much what we call the forms in terms of morphological terminology; I do think that inconsistencies arise when we assume and teach that μαι/σαι/ται;μην/σο/το forms are fundamentally passive or that θη forms are fundamentally passive.
Okay for the negatives
cwconrad wrote:What i think needs to be brought into grammatical explanation of voice usage is that the ancient-Greek voice system is built upon a polarity of "standard" (traditionally "active") voice forms and "reflexive" (traditionally "middle-passive" voice forms -- RATHER THAN on a polarity of "active" and "passive" with a "middle" usage of which students never quite understand what's "middle" about it.
Here is your suggestion.

Do you have any ideas about how to bring that out practically in teaching?
I am responding to these questions in a new thread under the title, “Teaching the New Perspective on Greek Voice” in the “Teaching and Learning Greek” Forum. See: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1986&sid=0e42720ef ... d5dc22e757
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Stephen Carlson »

cwconrad wrote:Stratton Ladewig's dissertation
Does anyone know if there are any plans to publish this dissertation?
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Stephen Hughes »

cwconrad wrote:The specific points I was attempting to make with my comments on Stratton Ladewig's dissertation and Dionysius Thrax and on Latin deponents as middle-voice forms were intended as responses to your claim that the ancients understood Greek voice exactly as traditional pedagogy teaches it and that Latin translators understood Greek voice-usage in the same terms as traditional pedagogy teaches it.

I have been thinking along these lines in broader more general terms for a couple years now since I started teaching in a language that was not overlayed with Latin grammar and style- coming in by translations to English and grammarians putting things into Latin categories - during the formative stages of the development of it's literary genres.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Paul-Nitz
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Location: Sussex, Wisconsin

Re: Voice Terminology

Post by Paul-Nitz »

Barry wrote, "I'm interested in what works."

This worked for me and my class.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/988 ... eseis.docx

The second page of that document was the most useful. Page 2 is set up for A3 sized paper.
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
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