Middle Verb/Deponent Verb Parsing

[LearningGreek]

Hello,

Its Basics of Biblical Greek 4th ed. Mounce states that there are three ways to parse a middle voice verb.

• middle - eg present middle indicative
• deponent - eg present deponent indicative
• middle deponent - eg present middle deponent indicative

What is the most common form used? That is the one I want to use when parsing a verb.

Thank you.

[Jonathan Robie]

Nobody answered your question, so let me give it a shot. First off, I think Mounce answers your question:

18.11 Deponent Verb. This is a verb that is middle or passive in form but active in meaning. Its form is always middle or passive, but its meaning is always active. It can never have a passive meaning. I will discuss the middle voice below.

You can tell if a verb is deponent by its lexical form. Deponent verbs are always listed in the vocabulary sections with passive endings. In other words, if the lexical form ends in an omega, it is not deponent (e.g., ἀγαπάω). If the lexical form ends in -ομαι, the verb is deponent (e.g., ἔρχομαι) You will have to remember that the word is a deponent.

οὐκ οἴδατε ποίᾳ ἡμέρᾳ ὁ κύριος ὑμῶν ἔρχεται (Matt 24:42).
You do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Mounce, W. D. (2009). Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar. (V. D. Verbrugge, Ed.) (Third Edition, p. 152). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Really, you have to understand what this particular verb means in the middle voice, in this particular context, and that involves interpretation and perhaps a lexicon.

He also offers this warning:

There is some interesting research currently happening that questions whether there actually is such a thing as deponency. For example, many deponent verbs are intransitive (36.10) and therefore cannot be passive. See the class website for an ongoing discussion.

These days, most people here on B-Greek don't talk about deponents. Carl Conrad and others have convinced us that verbs are never deponent ("broken"), the old linguistic description was broken. This may be a bit much for a beginner who is working out of Mounce, but if you want to understand how most of us see it, see this:

https://agntproject.net/anlex/analytica ... -deponency

Or this:

https://agntproject.net/anlex/analytica ... -deponency

[LearningGreek]

Thank you for your reply.

I was more thinking along the lines of what is the most common way of reffering to them, not what they mean.

I.e., do people most often call them deponent verbs, middle verbs, or deponent middle verbs.

I.e., if I am looking at a parsing of a word in a book, which one of the three terms will the book using when parsing it.

[Daniel Semler]

These days, most people here on B-Greek don't talk about deponents. Carl Conrad and others have convinced us that verbs are never deponent ("broken"), the old linguistic description was broken. This may be a bit much for a beginner who is working out of Mounce, but if you want to understand how most of us see it, see this:

https://agntproject.net/anlex/analytica ... -deponency

Or this:

https://agntproject.net/anlex/analytica ... -deponency

Interesting papers - thanx
D

[Barry Hofstetter]

Thank you for your reply.

I was more thinking along the lines of what is the most common way of reffering to them, not what they mean.

I.e., do people most often call them deponent verbs, middle verbs, or deponent middle verbs.

I.e., if I am looking at a parsing of a word in a book, which one of the three terms will the book using when parsing it.

Be careful what you ask for on B-Greek, you may get more than you intended...

Most people simply call them deponents. If you have to make a distinction, add middle or passive. Preferred terminology today (by some) is middle only or passive only.

Full disclosure... I still believe in deponents, I do, I do...

[Jonathan Robie]

Most people simply call them deponents. If you have to make a distinction, add middle or passive.

And even those of us who do not believe in deponents will understand if you say this. Barry will smile. Stephen Carlson will grimace. Everyone will understand.

Preferred terminology today (by some) is middle only or passive only.

In other words, some verbs only have middle forms or passive forms, never active forms. "Middle-only verbs" (media tantum if you want to impress your friends and make it sound harder than it is) and "Passive-only verbs" (passiva tantum). These both refer to the form of the word, not the meaning.

People who don't use the word 'deponent' for Greek verbs believe that a word like ἔρχομαι is not actually active in meaning, it is middle in meaning, but it is translated using an active verb in English because English has no middle voice. And we think that something subtle got lost in translation. No need to bless that loss with a formal grammatical term that does not describe what is going on in the Greek.

So you are now leaning something important - experts use different words to explain the same thing and also have different understandings of how Greek works, so when you read various texts or talk to different people, you will bump into that. Another thing worth learning - the best way to understand the meaning of a word is to look at all the uses of that word in context. Spend more time looking for examples and reading Greek than reading grammars.

[LearningGreek]

"Spend more time looking for examples and reading Greek than reading grammars."

That's an amazing simple yet profound tip. Thank you, and everyone else for the help.

[Stephen Carlson]

Most people simply call them deponents. If you have to make a distinction, add middle or passive.

And even those of us who do not believe in deponents will understand if you say this. Barry will smile. Stephen Carlson will grimace. Everyone will understand.

What kind of grimace? Like this ? Or like this?

I have no problem when students talk about deponents. Teachers, on the other hand, should know better.

[Jonathan Robie]

What kind of grimace? Like this ? Or like this?

I think that's up to you. But we need a photo, not just an emoji. "Stephen Carlson's Deponent Grimace" - I imagine this will appear on posters in every seminary where Greek is taught. Maybe we can print T-shirts.

I have no problem when students talk about deponents. Teachers, on the other hand, should know better.

There you go. LG, you hereby have permission ....

[mikeatnip]

"Spend more time looking for examples and reading Greek than reading grammars."

That's an amazing simple yet profound tip. Thank you, and everyone else for the help.

A little "tip" I taught myself while learning Spanish is that verbs should not be thought of as "to do this or that." To help me remember that middle verbs do not mean "to do this or that," I think of verbs as being "to make this or that action happen".
For example, in Spanish, bañarse does not mean "to take a bath," despite most lexicons saying so. It means to make bathing happen. And with the "se" it means I make that action happen to myself, or he makes it happen to himself. Without the "me/te/se," it means I make bathing happen to someone/something else.
So ἔρχομαι does not mean "to come/go." It means "to make coming/going happen." And with the ομαι I know that it means that I am making the coming/going happen to myself. Having no active form makes good sense because I really cannot make coming/going happen to others. (Well, maybe if I point a 12-gauge shotgun at them! )
When I was working through Mounce last year and came to his deponent verbs, I think I may have made one of those "Stephen Carlson's Deponent Grimaces." Being a newbie I thought maybe I could be wrong with Greek. Now I realize that I had good reason to grimace.
Maybe those who really know Greek on here can tell me if I am at least halfway thinking correctly about this?