Timeline for How accurate is the typical definition of a deponent verb?
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| Dec 3, 2023 at 23:52 | comment | added | Sebastian Koppehel | "To prove otherwise, you would have to show an example of populo used passively, which I could not find." -- Lewis & Short list several instances (no finite forms, mostly part. perf., which is typical, e.g. commentus = "invented"). I do think the whole example "agros populabantur" is a good demonstration of the truth in the formula "active meaning, passive form." | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 20:31 | comment | added | Mitomino | @cnread This clarified, it is indeed interesting to see how different languages use locative structures to express progressive aspect (e.g. see Section 1 of this article: ddd.uab.cat/pub/cwpil/1132256Xv7/1132256Xv7p159.pdf ). | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 20:25 | comment | added | Mitomino | @cnread You're quite right but don't get me wrong. I've just noted that this translation ("engaged in") has reminded me of Pinzin's (2018: 121) classification of the verb populor, in particular his non-trivial/non-obvious point: "the benefactive of a stative event in which another argument (marked by Accusative case) is involved" (italics mine). | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 20:15 | comment | added | cnread | Surely the Loeb translation is merely rendering the imperfective aspect of the tense, and it has nothing to do with the verb's being deponent? There are different ways of rendering this aspect for a past imperfect verb form: 'they were xing,' 'they were in the process of xing,' 'they xed (regularly/habitually),' and even 'they began xing' and 'they tried xing.' Your translation is just a variant of the 'they were in the process of xing' pattern. After all, I could just as easily – and, I would maintain, validly – translate the nondeponent populabant as 'They were engaged in devastating.' | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 18:13 | comment | added | Mitomino | By the way, when dealing with Latin deponent verbs, one thing I've always found intriguing is why the most productive set of them consists of denominal and deadjectival verbs (see page 119 and passim). | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 18:10 | comment | added | Mitomino | The interesting translation you give of populabantur 'they were engaged in devastating' has reminded me of Francesco Pinzin's (2018) definition/classification of this denominal verb (his PhD thesis is downloadable at dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/12877/956151-1197504.pdf ). See page 121: The nominative argument is in control of the event (it is a 'doer') but, in order to justify the middle morphology, Pinzin adds the following: this nominative argument is also "the benefactive of a stative event in which another argument (marked by Accusative case) is involved". | |
| Dec 3, 2023 at 16:30 | history | answered | Tyler Durden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |