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Re: Interaction: middle and imperfect

Jonathan writes:
> OK, I decided to check out the present of ERCOMAI, which also appears only
> in the middle. Is this right - with imperfective aspect, ERCOMAI occurs only
> in the middle, but with perfective aspect it never occurs in the middle? Are
> there other verbs that act this way? What does it all mean?
> 
> >I've never thought of interactions between voice and mood, 
> >but I just ran into an interesting fact: in the imperfect, 
> >ERCOMAI always occurs in the middle (11 times); in the aorist, 
> >it never occurs in the middle (168 times, all active). Being 
> >a naturally speculative type, I wonder if this could have to 
> >do with the force of the middle and the aspect of the imperfect 
> >both reinforcing a more vivid depiction of the actual event of coming?
> >
> >I hadn't expected this kind of interaction between tense and mood. Does
> this kind of pattern occur with other verbs, too? Has anybody written
> anything useful about it?

Interesting! That correlation would  be expected (and not, say, middle
and perfective), under the theory  of Transitivity presented by Hopper
and    Thompson  (in Language   1980),  in  which   properties of HIGH
transitivity (including  active  voice, perfective   aspect,  definite
direct objects) covary together cross-linguistically, as do properties
of  LOW   transitivity  (passsive   voice,  imperfective   aspect  and
indefinites, e.g.).  For a paper applying theories of this type (and a
list of  Hopper and Thompson's properties)  see my web page (Olsen and
Resnik paper). As pointed out for the middle in Greek

Incidentally,   in   the literature on  romance  languages   that I am
currently reading, the "middle"  is treated not  as between active and
passive,  but as between transitive   and intransitive.   So there  is
syntactic-semantic support for a relation potentiating Carl's proposed
development and change among  other constructions in the space between
transitive and intransitive, i.e.  between passive (agent argument may
be left unexpressed),  middle (agent-patient tend  to be the same) and
reflexive  (agent-patient tend to be  the  same, but different 'parts'
can be distinguished, as in John('s hand) shaved himself (his face).).
Other constructions  in   the 'middle' space  include  cognate objects
(fight the good  fight) and implicit objects (I  ate [a meal]).  It is
the latter, primarily, that are  discussed in our paper. (Comments and
Greek implicit object data especially welcomed!)

Mari