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Search perplexity, Gk passives


Rod Decker

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Why is it that when a search is conducted for passive forms in GNT-T, that the only results are all tagged middle?

 

E.g., [verb present passive indicative]

 

All the results are tagged as: pres mid indic (variant)

 

Would I assume correctly that this refers to forms that are actually middle or passive in form? (The Analysis window listing would suggest this.) But if so, then how does one find only passives?

 

The older GNT module returns separate results for passive and middle searches, but GNT-T appears to combine them. Is this explained anywhere?

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I tried searching for: [VERB present -(deponent, active, middle) indicative]

 

I found the same thing you did. All the results were tagged as middle in ID.

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Here is the response from Dr. Rex Koivisto who oversees the tagging of most of our Greek texts:

In response to scholarly request, several years back we changed the tagging philosophy on tagging middle/passives. Only those passives that have a passive morph indicator (QH or equivalent) are tagged as true passives. Those without them are tagged as middles, since the FORM is middle, even though the FUNCTION may be passive. To indicate which ones are deemed (by me) as FUNCTIONING as passive, I have included that tagging as a variant. Of course, this may not be the case in texts that I did not tag (Josephus, etc.).

In other words, you are finding the passive verbs, but thay are tagged as such in the variant tagging. Remember to use the Parsing window rather than Instant Details in order to see the variant parsing.

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... In other words, you are finding the passive verbs, but thay are tagged as such in the variant tagging. Remember to use the Parsing window rather than Instant Details in order to see the variant parsing.

 

That's what I thought--and I agree on the form/function issue. I wonder, however, if many users will understand this, esp. given that the Instant Details box (which gets used a LOT more than the parsing window since it's so convenient) shows only the middle parsing? I think it would be rather disconcerting to most users to search for passives and see only middles (per the ID box). Perhaps it should be considered (a nice passive verb construction--one the English teachers love to hate! :) ) whether it might be good for the ID box to list both parsings, perhaps something like this:

 

πλανᾶσθε πλανάω Verb 2 plur pres mid indic (variant) 2 plur pres pas indic (variant) to deceive

 

("Variant" might not be an idea note since it implies to many of us, "textual variant"--i.e., a text critical term; might "alternate" be better?)

 

Is there a document (that I should have read or at least remember having read! :) ) that discusses such grammatical assumptions? That would be esp. important if Rex tagged the NT one way and someone else tagged another corpus differently. (We users are never satisfied are we? :) )

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I have the Mounce/Koivisto tagged text from Olive Tree on my iPhone, and the popup window does indeed spell out both middle and passive parsings in full when the verb is middle/passive in form. I personally think this is the better way to go.

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