At 7:41:30 PM on Monday, January 25, 2010,
wyrdplace@... wrote:

> This is taken from an online ancient Greek tutorial, but
> it sums up the difference between active, passive and
> middle verbs, and I believe it applies to Old Norse:

Not really, because the <-sk> form in ON isn't actually a
voice at all in the sense that active and passive are
voices. It's a verbal inflection that has a variety of
functions. Sometimes it's reflexive: <hann nefndisk> 'he
named himself' is equivalent to <hann nefndi sik>, with the
reflexive pronoun. (Indeed, this may be the origin of the
form.) Sometimes it's passive: <þeir fœðizk> 'they are
brought up'. Sometimes it's reciprocal: <bítask> 'bite each
other'. Sometimes it significantly changes the meaning of
the verb: <gera> 'to make, to do', but <gerask> 'to become'.
(This may have developed from a reflexive sense, 'to make
oneself (into)' or the like, but the meaning is much more
general than that.) There are even some verbs that have
*only* an <-sk> form, like <óttask> 'to fear'. As Michael
Barnes says, it's probably best to treat <-sk> forms as
separate verbs, at least when you're starting.

Brian