Lesson 5.3 · Voice
The middle voice
The subject acts on itself, or in its own interest.
The third possibility has no equivalent in English, which is why it
gets a lesson of its own. An e after
the stem means the subject is doing the action to or
for itself — it is involved in the action, not just
performing it.
luatō | he looses (something else) |
luetō | he looses himself, or looses for his own benefit |
English needs extra words for this — "he washed himself", "he chose it for himself" — and often just lets it go.
Verbs that are only ever this way
Here is the practical part. A sizeable group of very common verbs
always carry the e, with no particular "to himself"
meaning left in them. Treat these as ordinary verbs that happen to
be spelled with an e:
dunetō | he is able (Matthew 5:14) |
ercheta | he came |
apolluenō | we are perishing (Matthew 8:25) |
In the Greek — deponents, and a merged spelling
The verbs in the second table are what Greek grammars call deponent: ἔρχομαι, δύναμαι, ἀποκρίνομαι have middle endings but active meanings, and there are hundreds of them.
Greek also spells the middle and the passive identically in
several tenses, so λύεται is "he looses himself" or "he is
loosed", and only context decides. Biblang has to pick one —
luetō or luitō — which makes reading
easier and hides the fact that a choice was made. This is the
most important limitation of the whole system, and Lesson 9.4
sets it out properly.