"Passives" and antonyms

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Stephen Hughes
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"Passives" and antonyms

Post by Stephen Hughes »

I've been thinking about antonyms for a couple of years now in regard to developing thinking in Greek as I read, but thinking about it, perhaps there is another thing that some verbal antonyms could be used for:
Barry Hofstetter [url=http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1977&p=11340&hilit=daily#p11321]Re: Voice Terminology[/url] wrote:Pedagogically, the distinction between active, passive and middle explains a lot of what's going on with the verbs -- here is this form, and here is what it means.
cwconrad [url=http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1977&p=11340&hilit=daily#p11324]Re: Voice Terminology[/url] wrote:Someone said (Mike Aubrey, probably?) he thought that B-Greekers had pretty well accepted the sort of perspective on ancient Greek voice that he and Stephen Carlson and I have set forth. ... "There is no passive voice in Greek", was not very helpful when Greek pedagogy continues to set forth the ancient traditional lore of active, middle-passive and passive morphology and distinct active, middle, and passive meanings. The fact is that the pedagogy is just beginning to shift
cwconrad [url=http://ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1986#p11370]Teaching the New Perspective on Greek Voice[/url] wrote:The fact is that ancient Greek voice morphology and usage are quite complex, partly because of the gradual shift from the older μαι/σαι/ται;μην/σο/το middle-passive forms to the newer θη forms that came gradually into standard usage over several centuries, and partly becaue of the survival in everyday usage of older forms long superseded in less-frequently used verbs.
mwpalmer [url=http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2174&start=10#p12861]Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?[/url] wrote:a new reference grammar would need to be developed along side a new lexicon, both informed by recent work in syntax and semantics.
There is a point in all this taken together that if there is no "passive" voice, then there is a need to learn opposites along with verbs. There is a natural inquisitiveness in students to be able to find the opposite of the active (the reverse way of expressing what is happening in a situation) and that needs to be catered for. Also an explanation of the development of the medio-passive voice needs to explain the relationship between both between the verb's own forms and its (situational) opposites.

To give some examples... ἀκολουθεῖν>>ἡγεῖσθαι||, βαλεῖν/θεῖναι>>κεῖσθαι||, καταστῆσαι>>διακονεῖν||

That is to say that the passive of "to follow" is "to lead", the passive of "to place" or "to put" is "to be resting on", the passive of "appoint" is "to serve".

This won't be true of all verbs, but will be for ones where there are two (or more) definte viewpoints on an action.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by cwconrad »

It's a bit perilous, I think, to formulate antonym-pairs/polarities on the basis of the Greek paradigms of διάθεσις. "Active and Passive describe basic patterns of English voice-forms and voice-usage far more adequately than they do the voice-forms and voice-usage of Greek, where what's traditionally been called "Active" is really a paradigm of forms unmarked for subject-affectedness and those called "Middle-Passive" and "Passive" are really paradigms of forms marked for subject-affectedness. For authentically transitive verbs, there certainly is a polarity of "active" and "passive" -- one that might be seen in the passage from Philo's De Opificio Mundi discussed elsewhere in this forum today -- δραστήριον and παθητὸν. But there's another polarity regularly represented in the Greek framework of διάθεσις: the polarity of intransitive verbs of process and transitive causative verbs (e.g. καθῆσθαι and καθίζειν, ἵστασθαι/στῆναι and ἱστάναι/στῆσαι. That second polarity may not be one calling for a pair of antonyms, but it is one that looms larger in the paradigms of inflection for voice/διάθεσις. My point is simply that the "active/passive" polarity should not be linked to the morphological paradigms of Greek voice/διάθεσις.
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 Hughes
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thanks for that Carl.

I'm happy to just treat these "antonyms" as different viewpoints of an action being expressed by different verbs. I'm finding this feature of the language facinating enough to learn in itself, without putting it specifically into the place of the ex-"passive" too. 8-)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Paul-Nitz
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Paul-Nitz »

Stephen, I think you're onto something. Opposite actions are both interesting and reduce learning load. For example, learning these as a pair ἀκολουθεῖν>>ἡγεῖσθαι makes the mental load more like one thing than two.

If you are making a list of pairs, I'd like to see it. (Does B-Greek has a dump spot for files?)

It occurs to me, too, that this sort of pairing happens naturally when teaching via communicative approach (especially the methods, TPR and WAYK).
If you give the command καθισσον "sit," you'll naturally also command...
If you command, λαβε "take," you'll also command....

I'm going to start paying attention to opportunities for using opposites in stories. Quick, Stephen! What's the opposite of γογγυζω? If you tell me within the next half a day, I'll be able to use it in my next TPRS story.
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
Stephen Hughes
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Paul-Nitz wrote:If you are making a list of pairs, I'd like to see it.
Well, no. Not a written list as such, a way of thinking. They are very often different according to the situation you find them in.

Take for example your γογγύζειν, I would guess might have any number of opposites;
  • ἀπολογεῖσθαι if the other party let people see things in a way that they hadn't realised before, or
    ἐκδικῆσαι / ἀπολέσαι if it was God and He had reason to, or
    τρέφειν / παρακαλεῖν if you it was a child asking for food or comfort.
For a game, if you wanted something more simple, you could ask your students to play chasies aound the playground with φύγειν, διω´κειν and ἅπτειν.

If you wanted to make a list together, we could do that, something like;
γογγύζειν>reason with them>ἀπολογεῖσθαι||>angry with them>ἐκδικῆσαι / ἀπολέσαι||>calming them>τρέφειν / παρακαλεῖν||

It is really very simple, imagine the situation, concentrate on what the other person (or people) is doing and then use the right Greek word to describe it.
Paul-Nitz wrote:It occurs to me, too, that this sort of pairing happens naturally when teaching via communicative approach (especially the methods, TPR and WAYK).
If you give the command καθισσον "sit," you'll naturally also command...
If you command, λαβε "take," you'll also command....
I think what you have here are a number of possible sequences of actions.
κάθισον could be followed by ἀναγνῶναι or φάγειν or ἀναπαύειν

This is also very easy to construct impromptu in a classroom if you ask the students (or think about it yourself if they are beginners) What are things we do when we are sitting? and then work them into the imperatives.

I might be mixed up with the Classical idiom, would Koine Greek give two imperatives - κάθισον! φάγε! or a participle with an imperative - καθίσας/καθίσασα φάγε! when putting two imperative that were in the same thought together?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Paul-Nitz
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Paul-Nitz »

Again, interesting thoughts, Stephen. My vocabulary isn't at a point where I could just think about what Greek action is related or opposite. I would need to think in English and then try to find a Greek word to match. That will likely land me with odd Greek words. But within my limited vocabulary, I'm going to try this pairing.

I don't think we quite understand each other on the value of memory with pairing opposites. Learning the two words UP/DOWN is the mental load of one. Learning SIT-->READ/WRITE/WATCH (or whatever else we do while sitting) might be a help to memory, but it's not quite the same value. So, I'm more interested in finding very clear opposites. In the case of "complain, grumble" γογγυζειν, I suppose the opposite isn't terribly clear... ευχαριστεῖν? μη γογγυζε ἀλλά ευχαριστε. [don't grumble, but be thankful]
Stephen Hughes wrote:would Koine Greek give two imperatives - κάθισον! φάγε! or a participle with an imperative - καθίσας/καθίσασα φάγε! when putting two imperative that were in the same thought together?
Coincidentally, I'm working on participles now in class and was just wondering the same thing. Is it correct to use a circumstantial participle with a present action.
  • αιρων τον κραββατον σου περιπάτει??? [taking up your mat, walk!].
Doubling up imperatives would seem less awkward to me.
  • Mark 2:11 ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
Paul-Nitz
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Paul-Nitz »

πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε [going, instruct!]
A participle coupled with an imperative Matt 28;19
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
Stephen Hughes
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Types of antonyms

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Paul-Nitz wrote: My vocabulary isn't at a point where I could just think about what Greek action is related or opposite.
Yes, you are right, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. But is that all of those that I should have thought of, will it be as many as I will think with another decade or two of Greek? I'm not, can't be certain, there are no "correct" definitive answers for a question like that. Deciding when "going subjective" (relying on one's own knowledge to answer a question) is apropriate or even advantageous is a difficult thing to guestimate. I suppose it depends on like what question you are addressing, the extent of vocabulary learnt (a body of knowledge). The requirements for vocabulary is less if the person considering it can paraphrase (a skill) too. The person who is considering it reasons for learning Greek also come into play; I use Greek to read for my own edification (and enjoyment), so my "going subjective" could be earlier with less ramifications than a researcher, who would probably always have to stick to strict standards of objectivity. Your students who are acquiring language naturally, will acquire a language and then later go through the proccess of standardising it.
Paul-Nitz wrote:I don't think we quite understand each other on the value of memory with pairing opposites. Learning the two words UP/DOWN is the mental load of one. Learning SIT-->READ/WRITE/WATCH (or whatever else we do while sitting) might be a help to memory, but it's not quite the same value. So, I'm more interested in finding very clear opposites. In the case of "complain, grumble" γογγύζειν, I suppose the opposite isn't terribly clear... εὐχαριστεῖν? μὴ γόγγυζε ἀλλὰ εὐχαρίστει. [don't grumble, but be thankful]
I think we understand each other; You are looking for easily recognisable diametric opposites, and I am just suggesting a few more flavours could be added to the pot. Let's look at the differences, and then how they work together.

I'm highlighting this kind of antonum:
  • Keep the action and "antonymise" the person - How do you describe such and so (an action) from another point of view?
And you are highlighting this kind:
  • Keep the person and "antonymise" the action - What would you be doing if you were not doing such and so?
Both types are good.

You are looking for binary opposites. In some (few) cases the question - What would you be doing if you were not doing such and so? Has a single answer for all situations, but not usually. For example;
  • What colour would a wall be if it wasn't white? (I could be just about every other colour). So there is no simple binary antonym in this case. v.
    What colour would a lemon be if it wasn't yellow? (It would be green). So yellow and green are opposites for lemons (that you could buy at a fruitiers).
Of course, in a situation in which there could be many opposites of the type that you are talking about - What could somebody be doing if they were not doing such and so?, in which case it is possible that a single opposite could be more common than the others, and that would be a good starting point from which students could learn the rest. Let's consider your γογγύζειν...(μὴ γόγγυζε, ἀλλὰ εὐχαρίστει.)

What situation would / could this be in relation to? I suggest; Getting a present. I would perhaps express γογγύζειν as:
  • γογγύζειν >things you can do after getting a present>γογγύζειν,εὐχαρίστειν||
So the partnership (pairtnership) of γογγύζειν and εὐχαρίστειν is actually following λάβειν δῶρον / χάρισμα. So, that could be written as:
  • >λάβειν δῶρον / χάρισμα>γογγύζειν,εὐχαρίστειν|| The actions that one does after / while "to receive a gift", are "to grumble" or "to thank".
The "What does one do after one has sat down?" that I brought up is something like:
  • >καθίζειν>ἀναγνῶναι,φάγειν,ἀναπαύειν|| The actions that are done after/while "to sit down" are "to read", "to eat" or "to rest".
Of course, if you wanted to, you could just introduce two of the three (in some cases there are more), like if you wanted to study Matthew 21:12:
  • >ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ>πωλεῖν καὶ ἀγοράζειν,προσεύχεσθαι||
The actions that are done in the temple are "to buy and sell" or "to pray". Later, you can introduce others like καθίζειν, διδάσκειν, and whatever else you come across or care to introduce.
Paul-Nitz wrote:I would need to think in English and then try to find a Greek word to match. That will likely land me with odd Greek words.
The various language are different expressions of the same humanity. You understand Greek because you are human, not because you are a member of that speech community. By mastering some Greek, you become a member. Our overall commonality is what allows us to understand each other. Be brave to express all the needs of your humanity in the language you are learning and teaching even knowing that it is not entirely idiomatic Greek yet.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Paul-Nitz wrote:
Mark 2:11 wrote:ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.
I think that those 3 imperatives are expressing 3 different (albiet sequential) actions.
Paul-Nitz wrote:πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε [going, instruct!]
A participle coupled with an imperative Matt 28;19

This may have been thought of as a single action.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
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Re: "Passives" and antonyms

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Paul-Nitz wrote:
Mark 2:11 wrote:ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.
I think that those 3 imperatives are expressing 3 different (albeit sequential) actions.
Paul-Nitz wrote:πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε [going, instruct!]
A participle coupled with an imperative Matt 28;19

This may have been thought of as a single action.
I'm inclined to think rather that the Marcan sequence is colloquial, while the Mt 28:19 formulation is ordinary Greek for sequential action. Cf. the Synoptic paralllels to Mk 2:11 -- where most will assume that Mark's version was earliest:
Mk 2:11 ]ἔγειρε ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.
Mt 9:6 ἐγερθεὶς ἆρόν σου τὴν κλίνην καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου.
Lk 5:24 ἔγειρε καὶ ἄρας τὸ κλινίδιόν σου πορεύου εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου
On the other hand, I've sometimes wondered about the Homeric formulaic sequence expressing movement away from a stationary location:βῆ δ’ ἰέναι -- "he/she strode to go ... " βῆναι means basically to move one leg away from the other, "take the first step." ἰέναι is then presumably an infinitive of purpose. ἐγεῖρε or ἐγείρετε -- the imperative forms -- appear to be used in colloquial speech similarly to indicate the initial step in a process of movement; it's worth noting that the middle voice form ἐγείρεσθαι/ἐγερθῆναι is standard for this verb.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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