Deponent verb

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A deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive.

Contents

1 Languages with deponent verbs
2 Deponency and tense
3 Peculiar issues in Greek
4 Examples
5 See also
6 Sources

Languages with deponent verbs

This list is not exhaustive.

Greek has middle-voice deponents (some of which are very common) and some passive-voice deponents. An example in Greek is ερχομαι (erchomai, I come or I go), middle/passive in form but active in translation.
Latin has passive-voice deponents, such as loqui ('to speak'), pati ('to endure') and sequi ('to follow'). There is also a verb form called the semi-deponent, where the verb looks active in the present, imperfect, and future tenses but looks passive in the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect. Since it is deponent, though, the latter verbs take on an active meaning. The number of such semi-deponent verbs is limited to four (audere, to dare; gaudere, to rejoice; solere, to be accustomed; fidere, to trust).
Swedish has a few passive-voice deponents, although interestingly, its closely related neighbour languages Danish and Norwegian don't have them. Modern colloquial Norwegian (widely used in newspapers) shows, however, an opposite trend: actions that are obviously passive in their meaning are expressed by active verbs (antideponentia). For example: "boka solgte 1000 eksemplarer" translated literally means "the book sold 1000 copies", but the intention is to express "the book was sold in 1000 copies", or "1000 copies of the book were sold". The trend seems to accelerate, and it is probable that the passive voice will disappear completely from the Norwegian language within 10 - 15 years.
In Japanese, at first sight it might seem as though the passive voice can be used to increase the degree of politeness in a sentence, i.e. establishing the existence of deponent verbs. However, it is merely by coincidence that the passive suffix corresponds exactly to a method of expressing politeness; in Nihongo Wocchingu, by Inoue Fumio, it is noted that grammar texts dating from the Heian era list the four uses of the auxiliary -ru/-reru (which has become -reru/-rareru in modern Japanese) as indicating intransitivity, the potential mood (as distinct from the tentative mood), the passive voice, and honorifics.

Deponency and tense

Some verbs are deponent universally, but other verbs are deponent only in certain tenses, or use deponent forms from different voices in different tenses. For example, the Greek verb αναβαινω (anabaino) uses active forms in the imperfect and aorist, but in the future it is a middle-voice deponent, αναβησομαι (anabesomai). If it were not deponent, the future active form would be αναβαισω (anabaiso), but this form does not occur in Koine Greek, because the verb is deponent in the future tense. The future forms that do occur have the same meaning and translation value that the active forms would have if they occurred.

Peculiar issues in Greek

Koine Greek has a few verbs which have very different meanings in the active and middle/passive forms. For example, ἁπτω ('hapto') means "I burn," whereas its middle form ἁπτομαι ('haptomai') means "I touch." Because ἁπτομαι is much more common in usage, beginners often learn this form first and are tempted to assume that it is a deponent.

Examples

Swedish andas ("breathe", deponent), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ånde ("breathe", non-deponent).
Swedish hoppas ("hope", deponent), Danish håbe, Norwegian Bokmål håpe ("hope", non-deponent).

Sources

Greek example αναβησομαι (anabesomai) taken from the principal parts table in the appendix to Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, William D. Mounce.