1 - Passive verbs and agent constructions

Summary

Beginning students of Ancient Greek soon learn that the agent of a passive verb is marked with the preposition ὑπό followed by the genitive. Then, of course, the exceptions come to light. The most common of these is the dative of agent, which, for the beginner at least, may be explained away as occurring with perfect passives and -τέος verbals. Later, however, one comes across other irregularities, notably the use of prepositions other than ὑπό^+G. The conditions that motivate these apparently anomalous agent markers have not yet been satisfactorily explained. The aim of this book is to do so.

I begin with an introductory chapter that lays a theoretical foundation for the work and discusses the reasons why these passive-with-agent constructions (PACs) occur in the first place. In Chapter 2, I move on to Homer, as the Iliad and Odyssey represent the earliest texts that are syntactically complex enough to have PACs. Because the Homeric data are so different from the later evidence – in particular, these constructions are far less common in Homer – they are best dealt with separately. Next, in Chapter 3, I look at the dative of agent.