Mediopassive voice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.

[edit] Examples of the Mediopassive

The Proto-Indo-European language is typically reconstructed as having two voices, active and mediopassive, where the middle-voice element in the mediopassive voice was dominant. Ancient Greek also had a mediopassive voice in the present, imperfect, future, perfect, and pluperfect tenses, but in the aorist and future tenses the mediopassive voice was replaced by two voices, one middle and one passive.

Spanish is an example of a modern language with a mediopassive voice, normally indicated by the use of a reflexive pronoun. This can variously have a middle-voice meaning (subject acting onto itself, or for its own benefit) or a passive-voice meaning (something acts onto the subject). An example sentence is "El padre se enojó cuando su hijo rompió la lámpara." The English translation is "The father got angry when his son broke the lamp." The verb se enojó is said to be mediopassive because it is comprised of the reflexive pronoun se and the simple verb enojó, which together literally mean "angered himself." This would be literally translated "The father angered himself when his son broke the lamp." Pragmatics quickly reject the middle-voice meaning for the intended mediopassive-voice meaning, translated above as "got angry," because the mediopassive voice is rarely used. Some other Spanish verbs that exhibit this property are molestarse (get bothered) and entristecerse (get sad).

Classical Armenian had a mediopassive form which was marked by changing the verb's thematic vowel instead of with a unique conjugation like in other Indo-European languages. Modern Armenian has retained some of these active/mediopassive pairs, but the distinction between the two voices is no longer productive.

[edit] Usage of the Mediopassive

The mediopassive can have many meanings depending on the context of the sentence.

1. In Proto-Indo-European and the languages that descend from it, verbs which also had an active form could use the mediopassive in a reflexive sense, e.g. "I wash (myself)". This reflexive sense could also carry a sense of benefaction for the subject, as in the sentence "I sacrificed a goat (for my own benefit)." These constructions would've used the active form of "sacrificed" when the action was performed for some reason other than the subject's benefit.
2. Greek and Sanskrit both had the verb "to follow" in the mediopassive only. Latin had the form "sequitur" ("He follows". -tur is the mediopassive present 2nd person singular from PIE *-tor) with the same usage. In all three languages the word "to follow" came from the same Proto-Indo-European root.
3. Some languages always used the mediopassive with verbs relating to standing, sitting, reclining, being afraid, being ashamed, and being pleased which didn't have an active form.
4. The mediopassive was combined with the subjunctive to form the future tense of the verb "to be" in Classical Greek.
5. The mediopassive can also be used in a reciprocal sense, e.g. "to fight" (with active) vs. "to fight each other" (with mediopassive).
6. Classical Greek also used the mediopassive in an intensive sense, e.g. "to be a citizen" (with active) vs. "to do the duties of being a citizen" (with middle).
7. The mediopassive can also be used as a passive form, especially when the mediopassive endings are combined with a specialized passive verb. This was very common in Sanskrit.

Here are a few examples of mediopassive constructions in English: The book reads well. The trousers wash easily. Ripe oranges peel well. This form is hardly ever used in English with the active voice (Subject acts on the object) or passive (Object is acted upon).