On the genitive case with ‘terminative’ verbs in ancient Greek

Abstract

1.1. In ancient Greek, ‘terminative’ verbs, i. e. verbs meaning ‘stop’, ‘finish’, ‘break off’, ‘cease’, frequently occur in combination with a noun in the genitive case, denoting the process, event or state which comes to end (henceforth ProcN). So, forms of the verb παυe/ο(on which our analysis is centered) occur in structures like (1) (2) (where the genitive ProcN is represented by τῆς ὕβρeως) and (3) (4) (with τῆς ὀργῆς). A relevant contrast, inside each pair, is related to the opposition between middle and active verbal inflection (cf. § 4):