The Middle Voice in Baltic

The fifth volume in the VARGReB series is a monograph presenting a collection of studies on middle-voice grams in Baltic, that is, on a widely ramified family of constructions with different syntactic and semantic properties but sharing a morphological marker of reflexive origin. Though the emphasis is on Baltic, ample attention is given to other languages as well, especially to Slavonic. The book offers many new insights into questions of syntactic and semantic interpretation, correct demarcation and diachronic explanation of middle-voice grams. The relationship between reflexive and middle, the workings of metonymy, changes in syntactic structure and lexical input as factors determining diachronic shifts within the middle-voice domain and transitions from one middle-voice gram to another – these are among the topics discussed in the book, which, beyond its relevance to Baltic and Slavonic scholarship, is also a contribution to the typology of the middle voice.

Peter Arkadiev, Russian Academy & Sciences & Russian State University for the Humanities:
This book is the first in-depth study of the middle-voice phenomena in Baltic languages since Geniušienė’s seminal “The typology of reflexives” (1987) and builds upon the whole body of theoretical and typological work on voice and related categories that appeared since then. Based on rich empirical data from both contemporary usage as reflected in corpora and historical sources, the book offers a synchronic account of different constructions as well as a number of insights into their diachronic origins, against a broader typological and theoretical background. This is a book to be read by all specialists on reflexives, middles and valency-affecting processes in general, as well as by those interested in grammaticalization paths and historical development of morphosyntactic constructions.