110 lines
7.1 KiB
PHP
110 lines
7.1 KiB
PHP
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<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0px;">Τὴν Ἀρχαίαν Ἑλληνικὴν γλῶτταν μὲν ὑπὸ βιβλίου ἀγαθοῦ παιδεύομαι</h1>
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<h3 style="margin: 0px;">τὰ ῥήματα τὰ τῆς γλώττης δὲ μισέω.</h3>
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<h4 style="margin-bottom: 0px;">I am being taught the Ancient Greek language by a good book, but I hate the language’s verbs</h4>
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<i>On Unit 5 and The Nightmare Which Is The Greek Passive Voice</i>
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<p>Indeed, one of the things which I have dreaded the most has “finally” arrived, namely the passive voice of Greek verbs. I have not yet even finished the fifth Unit, but I simply had to write this post to talk about the insanities of this voice; I even postponed my writing of the post on conditional sentences — which I had initially wanted to get published <i>before</i> this one — so that I am able to write about the passive.</p>
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<p>You may now, naturally — especially if you do not know anything about Attic Greek —, be wondering why this is the case and, perhaps, may even ask yourself what the passive voice even is. And, thus, before speaking about the aforementioned absurdity of the passive, I will begin by briefly explaining what the passive voice actually is.</p>
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<h2>The Passive Voice</h2>
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<p>The passive voice is hardly unique to Greek and exists in a large number of languages, including English. Verbs in the passive, unlike those in the active voice, do not refer to <i>who</i> is doing the action, but rather <i>to whom</i> it is done. Taking the, in the text book at least, rather frequently-used verb “to teach”, let’s compare the following sentences: I teach vs. I am being taught. In the former statement, <i>I</i> am the one doing the teaching, I am doing the action the verb describes; in the latter example, it is not I who is doing the action, but rather some third person. I am, this time, at the receiving end of the action. If I were to “see” you, you would say that you “were being seen” since the action of “to see” would be applied <i>to</i> you. Hence, the passive is, simply put, the form of a verb which does not describe the <i>actor</i>, but rather <i>he who is acted upon</i>. </p>
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<p>The passive in English is usually formed by the conjugated verb in addition to a conjugated form — or combination — of the verb “to be” using the following formula: <code>Person + “to be” (+ “to be” × n) + “verb”</code>. The second set of “to be” (the one located within parantheses which can occur <code>n</code> times) usually utilises the gerund — “being” — to signify a repeated or continuous aspect. This could, in theory, lead to rather ludicrous constructs such as “I had been being seen” or “I had been seen being seen” (a double passive) which, though theoretically possible, do not tend to occur in real-life. </p>
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<p>Despite this <i>being</i>-madness, however, the English passive tends to be rather straightforward and generally construced in a rather regular manner. This particular way of forming the passive is quite common in the Germanic languages — whereof English is one — and the above examples can quite easily be translated into German or Swedish using the same (or rather, similar) auxiliary verbs. German and Swedish, however, do not distinguish between completed / simple and continuous / repeated aspect and thus the following statements can have two different English translations, namely “I am seen” and “I am <i>being</i> seen”: “Ich werde gesehen”, “Jag blir sett”</p>
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<p>Swedish, in addition to forming the passive using “att bli(va)” and a conjugated (in past participle form) verb, also frequently — and, perhaps, even more commonly — uses the suffix “-s” (added to conjugated verbs) to signify the passive. If you wished to, for example, say that “He was attacked by a bear, you could say “Han attackerades av en björn” instead of “Han blev attackerad av en björn”. The form of the verb changes depending on tense, thus turning it into “Han attackeras av en björn” (“He is (being) attacked by a bear”) in the simple present. </p>
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<p>This is how the passive is formed in a lot of languages, namely by the usage of a (combination of) auxiliary verb(s); Ancient Greek, on the other hand, forms the passive in a radically different manner which we shall now briefly glance at — and then dread. </p>
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<div class="article">
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<h2>The Greek Passive</h2>
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<p>Greek's passive is, as all of its verbs, quite a mess. As explained in a <a href="verbhell.php">previous blog post</a>, Greek basically requires one to learn up to six different verb forms for each verb (some verbs lack certain Principal Parts, but I shall be ignoring that for the purpose of this post) in addition to each tense, mood and voice combination having its own ending (for the most part, at least). The passive, therefore, should be no different — and it is not. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the passive has a completely different set of endings. Firstly, there are two different sets of passive person markers, to which different thematic vowels may be attached; these markers are as follows:</p>
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<h3>Primary Markers</h3>
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<table>
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<thead>
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<tr class="header">
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<th></th>
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<th>Singular</th>
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<th>Plural</th>
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<td>1.</td>
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<td>-μαι</td>
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<td>-μεθα</td>
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</tr>
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<tr class="even">
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<td>2.</td>
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<td>-σαι</td>
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<td>-σθε</td>
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</tr>
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<td>3.</td>
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<td>-ται</td>
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<td>-νται</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<h3>Secondary Markers</h3>
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<table>
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<thead>
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<tr class="header">
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<th></th>
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<th>Singular</th>
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<th>Plural</th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr class="odd">
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<td>1.</td>
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<td>-μην</td>
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<td>-μεθα</td>
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</tr>
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<tr class="even">
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<td>2.</td>
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<td>-σο</td>
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<td>-σθε</td>
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</tr>
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<tr class="odd">
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<td>3.</td>
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<td>-το</td>
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<td>-ντο</td>
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</table>
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<p>In addition to these, some passives, such as that of the aorist, actually do <i>not</i> use these passive person markers, but rather make use of the ones used in the active, instead. In addition, there are two Principal Parts, namely V and VI, whose sole purpose is the creation of the passive voice — VI being used for the Aorist and Future; and V for the Perfect and Pluperfect. </p>
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