Stratton L. Ladewig, «Ancient Witnesses on Deponency in Greek.» filologia-neotestamentaria, Vol. 25 (2012) 3-20 page 6

Vol 25 (2012)

Stratton L. Ladewig, «Ancient Witnesses on Deponency in Greek.», Vol. 25 (2012) 3-20

Deponency has been the focus of investigation in the last decade. Some grammarians have questioned and/or denied the validity of deponency in Greek. One of the arguments used to support such a conclusion is based in ancient history. I investigate the writings of three ancient grammarians (Dionysius Thrax, Apollonius Dyscolus, and Macrobius) to determine the grammatical Sitz im Leben of voice in the ancient Greek. This inquiry establishes that deponency in Greek is a concept with roots that run deep into the ancient period, thereby refuting the challenge to Greek deponency.

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6 Stratton L. Ladewig The papyrological evidence suggests that a milieu that would produce a work such as Technē Grammatikē is precisely what did exist in the ancient world. In the first century a.d., there were elementary manuals of Greek grammar found alongside of contemporaneous, more detailed grammars. The inference is that these manuals were based upon a model. It seems that this grammatical manual that was a model for other τέχναι was actually Dionysius Thrax’s Technē Grammatikē12. Wouters explains, “Some new papyri of the first-second centuries show a remarkable resem- blance with §§6-20 of the Technē as we have them now”13. It is known from the textual history of other ancient written documents that it is not unusual to find a document for which its early history is no longer extant, especially one written in the b.c. era. The claim that the textual history indicates a later date is weak. The data simply do not demand such a con- clusion. As a result, it seems that it is best to accept the authenticity of Dionysius Thrax’s Technē Grammatikē, giving it a date of approximately 100 b.c.14. The result is a document whose pedigree demands that it be given attention, and Dionysius Thrax’s Technē Grammatikē rests as the foundation of formal grammatical study. Having established the authenticity of Dionysius Thrax’s work, let us now focus on the meaning of his discussion of voice and how it relates to deponency. 2.2 Technē Grammatikē ΠΕΡῚ ῬΉΜΑΤΟΣ Ῥῆμά ἐστι λέξις ἄπτωτος, ἐπιδεκτικὴ χρόνων τε καὶ προσώπων καὶ ἀριθμῶν, ἐνέργειαν ἢ πάθος παριστᾶσα. Παρέπεται δὲ τῷ ῥήματι ὀκτώ, ἐγκλίσεις, διαθέσεις, εἴδη, σχήματα, ἀριθμοί, πρόσωπα, χρόνοι, συζυγίαι. Ἐγκλίσιες μὲν οὖν είσι πέντε, ὁριστική, προστακτική, εὐκτική, ὑποτακτική, ἀπαρέμφατος. 12 A. Wouters, “The Grammatical Papyri and the Technē Grammatikē of Dionysius Thrax”, in V. Law and I. Sluiter (eds.), Dionysius Thrax and the Technē Grammatikē (The Henry Sweet Society Studies in the History of Linguistics 1; Münster 1995), 96-98. 13 Wouters, “The Grammatical Papyri and the Technē Grammatikē”, 98. 14 It must, however, be admitted that Technē Grammatikē underwent changes over the centuries (Wouters, Grammatical Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, 36). In the very least, even if the authenticity of Technē Grammatikē is rejected, the conclusions drawn still apply to the grammatical milieu of the ancient world (500 b.c.-a.d. 500). Because I am comfortable with Technē Grammatikē’s authenticity, I will place more weight in the conclusions. In other words, I affirm that Dionysius Thrax’s work was the foundation for all grammatical studies for eighteen hundred years. (See n 10 on p. 5 and the sentence that it supports.)