Re: Final voicing (3)

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 51080
Date: 2008-01-01

There are three voices, commonly.
 
The active subject initiates an action towards an object or no object..
 
The middle subject initiates an action towards himself or on behalf of himself.
 
The passive subject is the object of an action initiated by another actor, with or without the mention of a means whereby the action is accomplished.
 
 
Patrick
 
----- Original Message -----
From: afyangh
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 3:52 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Final voicing (3)

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@ ...>
wrote:
>
> My own hypothesis is that, in the language from which PIE is
derived, there was a word *T?SA, which meant 'body'; and from this,
the middle (actually reflexive) endings in -*dh in IE are derived.
>
> Patrick
========
Arnaud
As far as I understand active versus medio-passive,
active means that the (grammatical) subject is (thought to be) in
control of the process (described by the verb).
medio-passive means that the (grammatical) subject does not control
the process but takes part in that process as a kind of instrument,
not as a kind of cause or agent :
hence to get born, to flow, day-break occurs etc are medio-passive.

Arnaud