Re: 1 Cor 11:2

From: Dale M. Wheeler (dalemw@teleport.com)
Date: Tue Dec 22 1998 - 01:57:21 EST


On Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:08:23
Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 11:06 AM -0500 12/16/98, Bill Combs wrote:
>>I originally wrote:
>>
>>>>Should MEMNHSTHE in 1 Cor 11:2 be parsed as a middle or passive?
>>
>>Jonathan and Carl replied that it is middle. My original question was
>>prompted by Accordance, which lists it as a passive in 1 Cor 11:2.
>>
>>Bill Combs
>>DBTS
>
>Okay: I think what's happened here is that (correct me, Dale Wheeler,
>please) MIMNHSKOMAI has been classified in Accordance's database as a
>"passive deponent" --meaning "passive" on grounds that it has -QH- forms in
>the aorist and future "tenses," and "deponent" on grounds that its meaning
>is NOT passive.

I've been a little busy here lately (end of the semester, etc), and so I
missed this one the first time around (was made aware of its existence by a
post today by Randy Leedy). Carl is correct that the GRAMCORD database
follows BAGD in these types of purely morphological decisions--thus, one
set of "misguided souls" following another... (-:

I think we had this discussion on this specific point some time back, so a
fuller explanation would be in the archives. If one looks at the BAGD
entry, one will find:

MIMNHSKOMAI 1 aor. EMNHSQHN; 1 fut. MNHSQHSOMAI, etc.

In other words, this verb only occurs with "passive" (viz., "-QH-") forms
when these can be distinguished from the middle form (only in the Aorist
and the Future). Thus any form of this word should be tagged as passive
(ie., passive deponent) and not middle deponent. The supposition (not
GRAMCORD's, but BAGD's) is that since the clearly distinguishable middle
form never occurs, this form is always passive, even when its not
distinguishable (ie., in the Pres, Impf, Pf).

Also, I agree with Carl that the whole idea of "deponency" has been taken
WAY to far in application to Greek verbs, and look forward to him
completing his work on this issue. And while I didn't personally do the
original tagging of GRAMCORD 25+ years ago, I have checked all of these
verb entries in the past several years to make sure that they do conform to
BAGD in these matters. In the process I decided NOT to introduce a
"deponent" tag into the database at the morphological level, since on a
purely morphological base the verb form is either middle or passive IN FORM
(and with rare exceptions one can tell exactly which one by the procedure
outlined above). If I ever put a "deponent" tag into the GRAMCORD database
it will be as a secondary, alternate, "used as" tag (eg., Nominative used
as a Vocative).

Well, we could continue this, but...

XAIREIN...

***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street Portland, OR 97220
Voice: 503-251-6416 FAX:503-254-1268 E-Mail: dalemw@teleport.com
***********************************************************************

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