Mediopassive Voice - Usage of The Mediopassive

Usage of The Mediopassive

The mediopassive can have many meanings depending on the context of the sentence.

1. Reflexive mediopassive. In Proto-Indo-European and the languages that descend from it, verbs which also had an active form could use the mediopassive in a reflexive sense, e.g. "I wash (myself)". This reflexive sense could also carry a sense of benefaction for the subject, as in the sentence "I sacrificed a goat (for my own benefit)." These constructions would have used the active form of "sacrificed" when the action was performed for some reason other than the subject's benefit.
2. Reciprocal mediopassive. The mediopassive can also be used in a reciprocal sense, e.g. "to fight" (with active) vs. "to fight each other" (with mediopassive).
3. Autocausative mediopassive describes situations where the subject causes itself to change state.
4. In stative verbs. Some languages always used the mediopassive with verbs relating to standing, sitting, reclining, being afraid, being ashamed, and being pleased which did not have an active form.
5. Intensive mediopassive. Classical Greek also used the mediopassive in an intensive sense, e.g. "to be a citizen" (with active) vs. "to do the duties of being a citizen" (with middle).
6. In deponent verbs. Greek and Sanskrit both had the verb "to follow" in the mediopassive only. Latin had the form sequitur ("He follows". -Tur is the mediopassive present 3rd person singular from PIE *-tor) with the same usage. In all three languages the word "to follow" came from the same Proto-Indo-European root.
7. The mediopassive was combined with the subjunctive to form the future tense of the verb "to be" in Classical Greek.
8. The mediopassive can also be used as a passive form, especially when the mediopassive endings are combined with a specialized passive verb. This was very common in Sanskrit.