Re: The Meanings of Middle, or mana kartam

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen <elme@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Where did you learn that?

The links I provided in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/47595
Look for 'impersonal'

> Unless you can show me some, I don't think there is any evidence for
> it. It is true of Old Irish, however, but I am very sure that is an
> innovation, a mere constructio ad sensum: Anyone can get the idea of
> putting the undergoer in the accusative, but it is quite another
> matter to put it in the nominative if *that* is the innovation.

The accusative is the natural case for the undergoer in sentences with
impersonal verb forms. That's the way it is in Estonian (and
Finnish?), and cf. the Russian use of 3pl (active), with accusative
for undergoer of course, as impersonal. I think the impersonal with
accusative (or dative, or instrumental) is the starting point, from
which the middle developed. Once people got the idea of switching the
undergoer to subject, in the nominative, they had to find a way to
make the verb agree; that's how the 1st and 2nd persons were
constructed. The impersonal is not a specialization of the middle or
passive, it is the other way around.


Torsten