Middle

The middle voice in Ancient Greek can be said to code that the subject is the Endpoint of the event... Eleven middle uses, in all, were distinguished: passive middle, spontaneous process middle, mental process middle, body motion middle, collective motion middle, reciprocal middle, direct reflexive middle, perception middle, mental activity middle, speech act middle, and indirect reflexive middle.

This passage presents the monograph's comprehensive conclusion: the Greek middle voice encodes the subject as event-Endpoint and ramifies into eleven semantically interrelated uses mapped as a polysemous network.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003thesis

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the middle voice expresses that the subject is conceptualized as both the Initiator and the Endpoint. With regard to Ancient Greek, however, this characterization of the middle voice is not entirely adequate.

Drawing on Kemmer's macro-role theory, this passage defines the semantic core of the middle voice as the subject's dual role as Initiator and Endpoint, while noting the Greek system's partial deviation from that ideal formulation.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003thesis

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the middle voice is seen as a polysemous network of interrelated meanings. The abstract schema, embodying the semantic commonality of all middle meanings, can be characterized as affectedness of the subject.

Allan establishes the theoretical framework for analyzing the middle voice as a complex network category whose unifying abstract schema is subject-affectedness.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003thesis

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It is this broad sense of affect and affectedness that we need in an adequate definition of middle meaning.

This passage argues that 'affectedness' must be construed broadly to serve as the defining semantic feature of the middle, encompassing both passive and indirect reflexive meanings.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003thesis

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The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife

Hollis's Jungian text positions the 'Middle Passage' as the psychic crisis of midlife that demands a transit from ego-driven misery toward depth-psychological meaning.

Hollis, James, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, 1993thesis

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the middle voice is semantically marked with respect to affectedness of the subject. As a consequence, event types that do not involve subject-affectedness cannot be expressed by a middle verb.

Allan demonstrates the markedness of the middle voice relative to the active, establishing subject-affectedness as its defining and constraining semantic feature.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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the notion of prototypical transitivity is crucial to an understanding of the semantics of the middle voice... the middle ending makes this inherent element conceptually more salient, whereas the active ending — being neutral as to subject-affectedness — does not contribute to the meaning of the verb.

This concluding chapter passage situates the middle voice semantically against the active by arguing that middle morphology foregrounds subject-affectedness that the active leaves unmarked.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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the spontaneous middle, and the passive middle can be thought of as secondary prototypes — lower peaks in the mountain range.

Allan elaborates the prototype structure of the middle voice category, identifying the mental process middle as the primary prototype and the spontaneous and passive middles as secondary ones.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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The mental process middle is related to the passive middle. In both types, the subject passively undergoes the event. The difference between the two middle types relates to whether or not the event is initiated by an external agent.

Allan clarifies the semantic boundary between the mental process middle and the passive middle, hinging on the presence or absence of an external initiating agent.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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the difference between passive middle and intransitive collective motion middle is a matter of degree, depending on the saliency of the role of the leader of the collective.

This passage reveals that middle use categories are gradient rather than discrete, with the passive-collective motion boundary depending on contextual salience of the Initiator role.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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the extending form will not 'jump over' from middle use A to middle use C, without affecting the intermediate use B. These two claims can be seen as two sides of the same coin.

Allan argues that diachronic expansion of aorist forms through the middle voice's semantic network proceeds only along adjacent semantic links, confirming the contiguity principle.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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In the direct reflexive middles (λoύμαι), however, the Initiator-aspect of the subject is also, to some extent, conceptually distinguished from the Endpoint-aspect.

The direct reflexive middle is shown to maintain a partial conceptual separation between the subject's Initiator and Endpoint aspects, unlike true passives.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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In the course of the history of the Greek language, a gradual expansion of the passive aorist form can be observed. This expansion takes place mainly at the cost of the sigmatic middle aorist.

Allan traces the historical erosion of the sigmatic middle aorist by the expanding passive aorist form, situating the middle voice within Greek linguistic diachrony.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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The direct reflexive middle type involves a human agent that volitionally performs an action on him or herself. Many direct reflexive middle verbs relate to grooming activities.

Allan defines the direct reflexive middle as a subtype in which a volitional human agent acts upon themselves, prototypically in grooming contexts.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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the various oppositional middle types are distinguished purely on the basis of semantic criteria... the media tantum are distinguished by a completely different criterion, namely the non-existence of an active counterpart.

This passage identifies an internal methodological tension in middle voice classification between semantic and morphological criteria, particularly for the media tantum.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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all verbs inherently involve subject-affectedness. This inherent subject-affectedness motivates the presence of the (semantically redundant) middle inflection.

Allan explains that when active and middle verb forms coexist in poetry, the middle inflection is semantically redundant, motivated by inherent subject-affectedness in the verb's lexical meaning.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting

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The indirect reflexive middle involves transitive events performed by a volitional subject (an agent). The subject is affected in that s/he derives benefit from the action performed, i.e. the subject has the semantic role of beneficiary.

This passage defines the indirect reflexive middle by specifying that the subject's affectedness consists in deriving benefit from the transitive action performed.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003aside

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such lists almost always leave the reader with the following questions: Is there a semantic element common to these usage types? If so, how should it be defined?

Allan identifies the central unresolved questions in the scholarly tradition regarding the middle voice's semantic unity and the relations among its diverse uses.

Allan, Rutger, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003aside

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