The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study in Polysemy

Allan, Rutger The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek. A Study of Polysemy. 2003
The great variety of usage types of the middle voice in Ancient Greek has excited the interest of generations of classical scholars. A number of intriguing questions, however, still have been left unanswered. What is the exact relation between the various middle usage types? How can the semantic element common to all usage types be defined? What is the relation between the middle voice and the passive voice in the aorist and future stems? To provide an answer to these questions, this study takes a novel approach. Following recent developments in Cognitive Linguistics, the middle voice in Ancient Greek is analysed as a polysemous network category. This approach results in a unified description of the semantics of the middle voice which also accounts for diachronical developments.
ASCP 11 (2003), 286 p. Cloth - 79.00 EURO, ISBN: 9050633684