: A, M, and P – “Active”, “Middle” (μαι/σαι/ται;μην/σο/το), and “Passive” (-θη- forms), “laying aside” the designation of many of the forms hitherto tagged as one or another kind of “deponent” and tagging them simply as M or P. A
>2. The terms “deponent” and “deponency” are not useful in a discussion of ancient Greek voice, a fact that has been noted at least since A. T. Robertson’s big NT Greek Grammar. Conventionally the term has been used to refer to verb forms that have middle or passive voice forms but no active voice forms, e.g. δύναμαι, ἀποκρίνομαι, πορεύομαι. A distinction commonly employed is that between “middle deponents” (verbs with middle forms in the present tense and in the aorist tense, e.g. μάχομαι, ἐμαχεσάμην) and “passive deponents” (verbs with middle forms in the present tense and passive forms in the aorist tense, e.g. πορεύομαι, ἐπορεύθην). Some verbs having active forms in the present tense but future tense forms that are middle (e.g. μανθάνω, μαθήσομαι) are often referred to as “future deponents.” The term is sometimes also employed to refer to verbs that have middle or passive voice forms in the present tense but active forms in the aorist or perfect tense (e.g. ἔρχομαι, ἦλθον, ἐλήλυθα; γί(γ)νομαι, γέγονα). The term “deponent” has been explained as deriving from the participle of the Latin verb depono, deponens with the sense “setting aside” or “laying aside,” the idea being that “deponent” verbs “set aside” or “lay aside” their present-tense forms. Although the term “deponent” seems to derive from Latin grammatical descriptions of Latin verb forms, it is really questionable whether the term is properly applicable even to Latin verbs — but that is another matter altogether. My objection to the terms “deponent” and “deponency” is that they seem to imply that Greek verbs having no active present tense forms do not conform to standard Greek patterns of morphology or that they are somehow irregular, while I would contend that these verbs are so numerous in ancient Greek that they should not be deemed less standard than the admittedly larger body of verbs that do have active present tense forms. Alternatively the term “defective” is sometimes used for verbs that lack forms in one or more of the morphological paradigms of the ancient Greek verb; that might be a better term, but I think it would be preferable to acknowledge that a great many of the verbs in common everyday usage are “irregular” in that they do not display the full array of verb-forms one sees in the paradigms of λύω or παιδεύω in the appendices of primers of ancient Greek.
Suzanne Kemmer offers the following categories of verbs that typically find expression in middle-voice morphology. I present a compilation from her listings and the illustrative verbs in Greek are, for the most part, my own compilation:
1. Grooming, body care: washing, dressing, shaving, bathing, undressing, cutting hair/nails, anointing self, buttoning clothes (Fr. se laver, Gr. λούομαι)
2. Change in body posture: sit down, lie down, kneel down, arise, stand up (Gr. κεῖμαι, ἕζομαι, ἐγείρομαι, ἀνίσταμαι)
4. Translational motion: fly, flee, go away, run, hurry, go away from, climb, arrive, leave, come, go (Gr. πέτομαι, ἔρχομαι, πορεύομαι, Fr. s’en aller, Lat. se removere)
5. Indirect reflexive: break one’s arm, etc.; build oneself a house
6. Indirect middle, self-benefactive: choose, acquire for self, pray, attain, reach (Gr. αἱρέομαι, κτάομαι, εὔχομαι, ὀρέγομαι)
7. Naturally reciprocal events: meet, fight, greet, wrestle, embrace, quarrel, converse, agree with, mate, take stock together (Gr. ἀσπάζομαι)
8. Stative, naturally reciprocal: adjoin, be linked (copular), resemble one another, match (Gr. ἔχομαι)
10. Emotion: be frightened, hate, be angry, marvel at, delight in, take consolation, pity, care/worry, grieve/mourn, regret, be charmed, take pleasure, repent, be satisfied (Gr. ἥδομαι, Lat. misereor)
11. Emotive speech: complain, lament, blame (Gr. ὀλοφύρομαι, μέμφομαι)
12. Other speech actions: confess, boast, chide, accuse, lie, deceive, threaten, refuse (Gr. καυχάομι, αἰτιάομιαι, ὁμολογέομαι)
17. Spontaneous events: die, sink, develop, become light, change, dissolve, evaporate, germinate, dissipate, grow, burst, spread out, convalesce, thaw, melt, open, split, be born (a very large group, the mother of all of which is γίγνομαι)
18. Facilitative: inherent characteristic of patient allows action to take place: “soup eats like a meal.”
19. Impersonal: generic agent (both this and the above have generic aspects).
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Neva Miller has drawn up her own categories of what I have called “subject-focused” verbs and placed into them just about all, if not absolutely all, the so-called “deponent” verbs found in the Greek New Testament. Whether or not one finds these lists of Kemmer and Miller fully satisfactory, I think they are very instructive for our understanding of what these verbs are and what they have in common.