bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:09 pmIn addition to the general vagueness of the middle voice (which I never understood either, until I read the posts in this thread), the usual description of being ‘between active and passive’ only makes sense with some of the definitions given above: if you think of passive as a valency-decreasing or argument-rearranging action, then there is no way to have something ‘between active and passive’, but it makes perfect sense when you consider voice in terms of affectedness (e.g. think of active as focusing on the action itself, and passive as focusing on the resulting state).
The description "between active and passive" works also in terms of control, like when the subject does do the action but ends up affecting itself without meaning to. This would be opposed to the active voice, where the subject has more control, and the passive voice, where it has no control and does no action at all but rather receives the effect of somebody else's probably intentional action.
Good examples of what I mean would be the Latin deponent verbs, which are verbs that only take "passive inflections" (which actually mostly descend from the IE middle voice), not allowing active-voice inflections. In spite of the "passive inflections", some of them can take a direct object in the accusative. Because they almost always have an English active-voice verb as a translation equivalent, Latin teachers love saying that they're "passive verbs (in form) that are active in meaning", but that's just a comment about English translations (and believe me when I tell you this explanation generates controversy now and then in Latin forums...). Many deponents involve accidental actions of little control in which the subject still does *something*.
nāscor - to be born
morior - to die
lābor - to fall by slipping
fateor - to confess sth, likely reluctantly (with accusative object)
orior - (of people) to wake up; (of the Sun, stars) to rise; (of rivers) to originate somewhere; (of protests, controversies, riots) to arise
expergīscor - (of people) to wake up
patior - to suffer/allow sth (with accusative object, i.e. receiving or allowing something bad voluntarily)
vereor - to revere sth sacred (w/ acc. obj., as in feel fear towards a god, cognate with English 'wary' and 'aware')
veneror - to revere sth sacred (w/ acc. obj.)
Some of the above are quite nicely opposed to other verbs that take the active voice (and have a passive transformation available), expressing greater control by the subject: mē expergefaciō (with a reflexive pronoun) 'to wake up, wake oneself up (voluntarily, as planned)', sinō and permittō 'to allow sth' (per-mittō lit. "through-send", synchronically looking very voluntary), colō 'to worship sth sacred'.
It is interesting that morior 'to die' can be shocking because of its [-control] morphology, and in contrast,
all the euphemisms are active, as if the person had had some [+control] choice at the time of death: obeō ("go forwards"), intereō ("go through the middle"), exeō ("go out"), excēdō ("move out"), dēcēdō ("move away"), occumbō ("recline forwards"). (You see something similar in Spanish, where non-reflexive
morir 'to die' is both more polite and calmer than reflexive
morirse, the latter expressing greater suddenness and emotion.)
The speech acts are also interesting. The deponent ones focus more on the subject, but the active/passive dīcō on what is said. Notice
for has little control yet again, and that although baubor/nūgor/fābulor/loquor are perfectly voluntary and in control, they're nevertheless basically atelic...
for - to barely say sth, as a baby or while dying; to say sth while possessed by a god or spirit (w/ acc. obj.)
auguror - to give a prophesy or the will of the gods using bird divination (intransitive)
baubor - (of dogs) to bark while happy (intrans., cf. active lātrō 'to bark while angry')
nūgor - to speak non-sensically or trivially (intrans.)
fābulor - to speak idly in good humour (intrans., from fābula 'tale', so lit. "to do tales")
loquor - to speak (typically without a direct object but takes a complement with
dē 'about', focusing on the subject, occasionally w/ acc. obj.; antonym: taceō 'to keep silence')
garriō - to gossip (with active morphology!)
dīcō - to say sth, tell sb sth (typically something of importance, focusing on the object)
Naturally there are also some of those reflexives of affectedness you talk about, where the subject has an interest in what they get from doing the action:
sequor - to follow sth (w/ acc. obj., basically go after sth to get it or get to it for yourself)
adipīscor - to get sth for yourself (w/ acc. obj., historically lit. reach to sth for yourself)
fūror - to steal sth (w/ acc. obj.)
amplexor - to hug sb (w/ acc. obj.)
ōsculor - to kiss sb (w/ acc. obj.)
polliceor - to promise sb sth (w/ acc. obj. for the theme, dat. for the person sth is promised to)
hortor - to encourage sb to do sth (w/ acc. obj. for the person and subjunctive subclause)
nancīscor - to barely manage to get sth (w/ acc. obj.)
proficīscor - to start (no obj., lit. "to make yourself start acting forwards", pro-fic-īsc-or lit. "forwards-do-inchoative-middlevoice")
vēscor - to eat, to eat sth (w/ acc. obj.)
aquor - (of soldiers) to drink water (intransitive), typically while terribly thirsty
Relatedly, verbs with experiencer subjects that nevertheless involve the subject actively taking in and thinking about things:
reor - to think/reckon sth after consideration (w/ acc. obj.)
recordor - to remember and consider sth, call sth to mind (w/ acc. obj.)
opīnor - to hold the opinion that [S] (w/ sentential complement)
tueor - to watch sth to protect it (w/ acc. obj.)
The category of labile verbs in which inanimates can be said to relatively do certain actions, which in English are often ambitransitive with the causative, showing ergative-like behaviour ("the window broke", "I broke the window"; "I moved", "she moved me"), are generally
not deponent, but sometimes do use passive inflections while still implying the subject does something within the action (even if with little control):
frangō - to break sth (w/ acc. obj.)
~ frangor - to break (intransitive)
quatiō - to shake sth (w/ acc. obj.)
~ quatior - to shake (intransitive)
moveō - to move sth (w/ acc. obj.)
~ mē moveō - to move (with a reflexive pronoun as the acc. obj., no separate theme argument)
~ moveor - to move (intransitive, synonym of mē moveō)
labefaciō - (of an earthquake) to shake sth (w/ acc. obj., typically a building, house, wall)
~ labefīō - (forced by an earthquake) to shake (intrans.; fīō is the passive form of faciō)
Again, the verbs here with passive morphology are actually in the middle voice and the subject is implied to actively do something. One of the Latin dictionaries I consulted gives this quote from Cicero:
quod ipsum ex suā sponte movētur 'what moves by itself out of its own will', where movētur = moveor in the 3SG form. (Note how translating that as "what is moved by itself of its own will" makes no sense in English.) That could've also been
sē movētur with a reflexive pronoun.
However, quite a lot of the usual labile verbs are rendered with wholly different stems, using derivational suffixes, or maybe with a reflexive pronoun in the intransitive usage:
fervefaciō - to boil sth (w/ acc. obj., causative compound of ferveō and faciō 'to do/make')
ferveō - to boil (intrans.)
sānō - to heal sth (w/ acc. obj.)
sānēscō - (of a wounded person or a wound) to heal (intrans., with the usually inchoative -ēscō)
ūrō - to burn sth (w/ acc. obj.)
ardeō - to burn (intrans.)
scindit - to tear sth, burst sth (w/ acc. obj.)
sē scindit - to tear, burst (intrans., with refl. pron.)
I think all the above notions are good to apply the middle voice to in conlangs if one is interested in that.
(By the way, in the same post, chris_notts mentioned that the non-Indo-European language Fula also has a middle voice. Does anyone know anything about that?)
I've seen quite a number of languages getting talked about as having a middle voice while incidentally reading about something else, but I don't pay attention to that much. Standard Arabic has a valency derivational affix (valency V, taCaC:aCa) that gets used a lot to express somewhat idiomatic reflexives, especially reflexives of the usually causative valency II (CaC:aCa), so I've seen valency V referred to as expressing the middle voice sometimes.
ʕalima - 'to know sth'
> ʕallama - 'to teach sb sth' ("make sb know sth")
>> taʕallama - 'to learn sth' ("teach sth to oneself", or well, "make oneself know sth")
ħasan - 'beautiful/handsome, good', ħasuna - 'to be beautiful/handsome, good'
> ħassana - 'to make sth good, improve sth'
>> taħassana - 'to improve' (intrans., "improve oneself", or well, "make oneself good")
qadama - 'to be before', qaduma - 'to be ancient'
> qaddama - 'to put sth at the front or before'
>> taqaddama - 'to be before sth; make progress' ("put oneself at/towards the front", or well, "make oneself be at/towards the front")
kalima - 'word, speech'
> kallama - 'to talk to sb' (valency II CaC:aCa derives transitive verbs from nouns too)
>> takallama - 'to speak; to speak [a language]' ("talk for oneself", transitive but focused on the subject)
ʃaraf - 'honour'
> ʃarrafa - 'to honour sb, give honours to sb'
>> taʃarrafa - 'to be honoured' ("give honours to oneself" through one's actions)
By the way, a related affix, valency VI taCaaCaCa, typically expresses reciprocals, especially reciprocals with a plural subject of the dative applicative valency III CaaCaCa (qaasama 'to share with sb' > taqaasama 'to share with each other'). Valency VI taCaaCaCa also creates verbs of pretending to do something ("making yourself be sth", as in maridˤa 'to be ill/sick' > tamaaradˤa 'to fake being ill/sick, make oneself be/appear sick', or ħaaʃaa (underlyingly ħ-aa-ʃ-a-y-a) 'to exclude sth' > taħaaʃaa 'to avoid/shun sth', that is "to make oneself exclude sth"). This suggests that the prefix ta- is probably a grammaticalized reflexive morpheme...