An intermediate to advanced exploration into the nature and function of voice and mood in the Koine Greek of the New Testament.

The author thoroughly explores the history of grammatical understanding of both voice and mood, supplying a well researched explanation of the various ways voice and mood have been explained in grammars throughout time. The author then explores a more SFL approach to both voice and mood in the New Testament.

In terms of voice: voice reflects causality and agency relative to the subject. The author would not go so far as to combine the middle and passive voices, but believes deponents are just middle forms.

In terms of mood: mood reflects the author's idea of the verb as it relates to reality.

The work is very thorough and useful for deeper exploration of Koine Greek grammar.

Voice and Mood: A Linguistic Approach by David L. Mathewson is the first book out in Baker Academic’s Essentials of Biblical Greek Grammar series edited by Stanley E. Porter. This book covers two important areas of NT Greek study that are often overlooked.

Part 1 is on voice. Part 2 is on mood. The chapters on voice cover recent scholarship, linguistic models, and an argument for three voices. The chapters on mood cover recent scholarship, an overview of the mood system, and treatment of infinitives and participles.

Voice

Mathewson surveys the standard grammars and cites weaknesses such as basic models, limited understanding, and the multiplication of questionable labels based on context and interpretation. He summarizes the work of Rutger Allan and Rachel Aubrey on the middle and passive voices. Bryan Fletcher’s work is noted for incorporating Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Mathewson then analyzes voice by adapting SFL to propose insights using the terminology of transitivity, medium, agent, and ergativity. Transitivity considers “who does what to whom.” Medium is “the thing through which the process is actualized.” Agent is the “external cause of action.” And ergativity is “the cause of the action internal or external to the verbal process.”

According to the author’s analysis, causality is the primary semantic feature of voice. And as a result, he argues for three voices (active, passive, and middle) because causality is the distinguishing feature between the middle and passive.

Mood

Mathews again surveys the standard grammars and finds fault with them for multiplying labels, little progress on evaluating the semantics of the indicative and nonindicative, and a failure to incorporate the findings of modern linguistics.

Mood is defined as “the speaker’s commitment with respect to the factual status of what he is saying.” It’s the perspective of the author/speaker’s conception or portrayal of the action (not reality). The semantics of the indicative and nonindicative are then considered in terms of assertion and nonassertion respectively. Infinitives merely “refer to the action of the verb” without presupposing anything about said verb. Participles do the presupposing by grammaticalizing the author’s portrayal of an action’s reality.

Conclusion

Mathewson offers a technical overview of two overlooked areas of Greek grammar. He identifies weaknesses in our standard grammars and points to scholarly advances, and his application of SFL offers promising methods for a more robust understanding of voice and mood. Hopefully other grammarians will test his findings and offer simpler presentations that would benefit students. I look forward to reading more books in this new series.