¹ Über das italo-keltische passivum und deponens, Kuhn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 30.224–89 (1887).

² Loc.cit. 229.

³ Cf. my paper, The Nature of the Latin Passive in the Light of Recent Discoveries, AJP 48.157–75 (1927).

⁴ See Lang. 5.237, 238, footnotes 33 and 35, and cf. J. B. Hofmann, De verbis quae in prisca latinitate extant deponentibus 2–3, 51 (Greifswald, 1910). Hofmann's whole treatment presupposes the origin of the Latin passive and deponent from the IE middle. Cf. e.g. such a footnote as that on p. 38, ‘Verbum orior est mediopassivum iam inde ex indogermanicis temporibus’ or such a heading as that on p. 46, ‘Mediales formae verborum ceterum active currentium’.

⁵ See my paper, The Hypothesis of the Italo-Celtic Impersonal Passive in -r, Lang. 5.232–50.

⁶ Cf. L. H. Gray, Lang. 6.250–2 (1930); W. Petersen, AJP 53.208–10 (1932), Lang. 12. 171–2 (1936).

⁷ See H. Pedersen and H. Lewis, A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar 310 (Göttingen, 1937).

⁸ I looked up forty occurrences of the present tense of videor in all persons in the Index Verborum Ciceronis Epistularum (W. A. Oldfather, H. V. Canter, K. M. Abbott; Urbana, 1938) and found all of them showing the meaning ‘seem’. This meaning was in many-instances guaranteed by the presence of an accompanying dative and the passive sense was everywhere excluded by the context.

⁹ We are likely to be misled by translations in English, where passives are apt to be used to represent reflexive expressions of other languages. Contrast the English rendering of this very passage: ‘Since there are regions within the Arctic Circle and at the pole where the sun is not seen for six months at a time’ (Roman Farm Management 59, done into English by a Virginia Farmer [New York, 1913]), with the French translation: ‘puisqu'il y a des régions situées au pôle arctique, où le soleil est six mois consécutifs sans se montrer’ (L'économie rurale de Varron 19, traduction nouvelle par M. X. Rousselot [Paris, 1843]). The rendering in the modern Latin tongue reflects more accurately the real meaning of the ancient Latin verb-form.

¹⁰ In reality, just the opposite is the case. Cf. J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen über Syntax², Erste Reihe 135 [Basel, 1926]: ‘Statt das Passiv als natürliche Seitenform zum Aktiv zu betrachten, sollte man sich eigentlich über das Dasein eines Passivs wundern. Mit Recht hat man das Passiv als einen Luxus der Sprache bezeichnet, weil der passivische Satz nichts anderes darstellt als die Umkehr des normalen aktivischen Satzes.‘

¹¹ Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon s.v. (new edition revised by H. S. Jones; Oxford, 1925).

¹² R. J. Cunliffe, Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect s.v. (London, 1924).

Georg Autenrieth (A Homeric Dictionary, translated by Robert P. Keep; New York, 1883) does not make this mistake. Autenrieth rightly recognizes only a middle force for ∊ἴδ∊ται, ἐ∊ίσατο, and the corresponding participles, and gives no passive meaning for the verb at all. Delbrück, also, lists ‘∊ἴδομαι erscheinen’ among the media tantum (Grundriss¹ 4.423).

¹³ See G. M. Bolling, The External Evidence for Interpolation in Homer 115–6 (Oxford, 1925).

¹⁴ See H. Grassmann, Wörterbuch zum Rig-Veda 1270 (Leipzig, 1873).

¹⁵ Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen 1.236 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1930).

¹⁶ See A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine² 1105 (Paris, 1939).

¹⁷ Cf. Ernout and Meillet, ibid.

¹⁸ Professor Franklin Edgerton, in an oral communication, has suggested to me that in the case of the Sanskrit verb dṛśyate the reverse semantic development has taken place, the notion ‘is seen’ preceding that of ‘appears’. With the utmost respect for the distinguished Vedic scholar, I am unable to follow him in this view.

The earliest meaning of this ‘passive’ form of the base darś we should naturally expect to find in the Rigveda. It occurs there only once, according to Grassmann, in 10.146.3: utá g ā́va ivādanty utá véśmeva dṛśyate. In this hymn, dedicated to the Goddess of the Forest, Aranyânî, we have a highly poetic and imaginative description of the strange sounds and fantasies that bewilder the wayfarer overtaken by nightfall in the forest glades. Griffith (Hymns of the Rigveda² 2.589) translates line 3: ‘And, yonder, cattle seem to graze, what seems a dwelling-place appears’ (cf. Macdonell's rendering, ‘A dwelling house appears to loom’, Hymns from the Rigveda 82), and Geldner (Rigveda in Auswahl 2.217) interprets the apparition with ‘Lianen und Büsche erscheinen wie ein Haus’. Similarly, Langlois has ‘la maison brille à la vue’ (Rig-Véda 4.442). Ludwig (Der Rigveda . . . ins deutsche übersetzt 2.541) actually uses a German reflexive to express the idea: ‘es ist als ob dort rinder fräszen, wie ein wonhaus sieht sichs an’.

The natural conclusion would seem to me to be that in the Rigveda dṛśyate had not yet fully acquired its passive value, but might still be used, as apparently it is in Hymn 10.146, to mean ‘appear’. The meaning ‘be seen’ would thus be a later development, precisely as in the case of Latin vidērī.

¹⁹ Cf. F. Bechtel, Lexilogus zu Homer s.v. (Halle, 1914).

²⁰ Dict. étym. 312.

²¹ This personal use of the various forms of vidērī followed by an infinitive occurs some seventy times in Plautus, contrasting with only four or five instances of the infinitive with vidētur used impersonally. Cf. G. Lodge, Lexicon Plautinum 868.

²² Cf. T. K. Arnold, A Practical Introduction to Latin Prose Composition §43 (revised by G. G. Bradley; London, 1933) : ‘With passive verbs sentiendi el declarandi, such as videor, “I seem,” dicor, “I am said,” and similar verbs, the impersonal construction, “it seems,” “it is said,” is not used in Latin.‘

²³ Cf. B. L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to Demosthenes 1.§145 (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, 1900).

²⁴ Though OCS vědě is not, as it stands, an inherited form (cf. E. H. Sturtevant, Lang. 10.15; A. Meillet, Le slave commun² §335 [Paris, 1934]), it is Common Slavic and I adhere to Meillet's view (loc. cit.) that it contains ‘une ancienne désinence moyenne’, parallel to that seen in the Latin type tutudī. I do not follow Meillet in considering the use of middle endings in the perfect as being ‘sans valeur spéciale’. Cf. Lang. 15.156.

²⁵ See my paper, The Voice of the Indo-European Perfect, Lang. 15.155–9 (1939).

²⁶ Cf. Ernout and Meillet, Dict. étym. 1105. For the literature of Irish -fitir and its congeners and for a criticism of Zimmer's theory of its provenance from an original 3d pl. active see Lang. 5.241, fn. 52. In any case the r-ending of Sanskrit vidúr is probably identical with the IE middle ending -r. Cf. Lang. 15.157.

²⁷ See Ernout and Meillet 1104, and cf. J. Brunel, L'Aspect verbal et l'emploi des préverbes 15 (Paris, 1939).

²⁸ Skt. dṛś also, as a glance at Grassmann's Wörterbuch zum Rig-veda will show, has a decided penchant for the middle voice, with meanings such as ‘sichtbar werden, erscheinen, sich zeigen (als)‘. Here however the verbal pattern is somewhat obscured by the suppletive relation of dṛś with paś.

²⁹ Text and translation of the Plautine passages as given in the Loeb Classical Library (Plautus, with an English translation by Paul Nixon, vol. 2).

In an article to appear in AJP 64.1, I have discussed the text of Plautus, Curculio 260–1; Epidicus 61–2. See abstract in PAPA 71.xxxi-xxxii.