[tied] Re: The Meanings of Middle, or mana kartam

> > For that matter, the PPIE impersonal voice which became
> > the PIE middle might have been construed with an accusative too.
> >
> > Tsk, tsk. I just learned that what is the passive in Latin was in
> > Oscan and Umbrian an impersonal which existed only in the 3sg and
> > 3pl and which took the 'subject' in the accusative, just as is the
> > case in Estonian.
> >
>
> As in German idioms: "mich friert", "mich dürstet"?
>
> Here the 'subject' is in the accusative, but the verb form is active.

Apart from the fact that the verb is not formally, only semantically
impersonal, a development as in Danish 'mig tørster' (in the oldest
Bible translations) -> 'jeg tørster' (now only in a transferred sense,
eg for knowledge), 'jeg fryser', is the one I proposed for the PIE middle.

BTW, there is a dialectal difference in Danish, standard 'Jeg fryser
om hænderne' lit. "I am-freezing about the-hands", ie "my hands are
cold", vs. jysk "Jeg fryser hænderne", lit. "I am-freezing the-hands".
The latter can only make sense as a former construction with dative
*'mig fryser hænderne', lit. "to-me are-freezing the hands"


Torsten