Am Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:28:43 -0000 schriebst du:
> The semantics of the middle has always escaped me. He did it for
> himself vs. he did it? Why would a language find that distinction so
> important that it needed a separate category? And why would that
> category at times turn into a passive?
>
I'd like to know more on that exact question as well.
Lehmann's book on PIE syntax
<
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/pies00.html> has
something on the matter; he ascribes it to PIE having been an OV
language and the switch to SVO in the daughter languages (which he
calls "the dialects").
I just started reading the online version of this book; I did not find
a real answer there yet, in particular why OV should imply the middle,
but I am confident something is in one of the many chapters I did not
read yet.
Joachim