Re: [tied] Re: Middle Voice

From: P&G
Message: 38539
Date: 2005-06-12

I wonder if you are trying too hard to find a sharp distinction?   Greek and Sanskrit inherited from PIE two sets of verb endings, active and middle.  The basic distinction was in line with what has already been posted (middle implies involvement of the agent in some further way), but in many verbs the use of the middle had become mere habit by the time of the languages we know.  We cannot press either Greek or Sanskrit for a hard and fast distinction in all cases, even though with some verbs a distinction is clear.
 
A good example of bad practice is from a theology lecture I attended.  The speaker claimed that the use of the middle was significant in the New Testament phrase "No one comes to the Father except by me".  He argued that we come to the Father for our own benift, hence the use of the middle.  In fact, the language has no choice at that point.  The verb exists only in the middle, and by New Testament times the middle in that verb has no particular significance whatever.
 
So it is with the earliest Greek and Sanskrit we have.  Some instances of the middle have significance, some do not.
 
Peter