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In linguistics, a deponent verb is a verb that is active voice in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle voice or passive voice. A deponent verb has no active forms.
Some 'active' verbs will take middle-form futures, such as how ἀκούω (, 'I hear') becomes ἀκούσομαι (, 'I will hear'), rather than the regular adding of a sigma (like παύω (, 'I stop') becoming παύσω (, 'I will stop')). These are still translated into English as active. For these verbs, there is no future middle, but the future passive is unaffected.
Koine Greek has a few verbs which have very different meanings in the active and middle/passive forms. For example, ἁπτω]] () means "I set fire to", whereas its middle form ἁπτομαι () means "I touch". Because ἁπτομαι is much more common in usage, beginners often learn this form first and are tempted to assume that it is a deponent.
In recent years, there has been a sustained challenge to the notion of deponency by scholars of ancient Greek. They argue that the "middle-preference" verbs in Greek should be translated within the middle voice, and as a consequence that our understanding of the middle voice should be shaped by these verbs. In other words the "deponent" verbs take only the middle endings because the semantic domain of these verbs communicates a middle idea.
Examples are hortārī ('to exhort'), verērī ('to fear'), loquī ('to speak'), blandīrī ('to flatter'), and many more.These were chosen because they reflect the four conjugation paradigms. For a longer list, see Adler page 686 ff. The forms regularly follow those of the passive of normal verbs:
| amō | amor | hortor |
| amāvī | amātus sum | hortātus sum |
Additionally, four Latin verbs (audēre , gaudēre , solēre , and fīdere ) are called semi-deponent, because though they look passive in their perfect forms, they are semantically active in all forms.
Conversely, Latin also has some verbs that are active in form but passive in meaning. fio was used as the passive of facio . In the perfect forms (perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), this was a compound verb just like the passive voice of regular verbs (factus sum ).
The pattern was not continued into the modern languages and all such verbforms were ultimately replaced by 'normal' forms. The -Vr ending still is the regular passive or impersonal ending in the later language, as in the eg Modern Scottish Gaelic passive/impersonal cluinnear . The verb cluinn has its origin in the deponent Old Irish ro·cluinethar .
Traditional grammar distinguishes three classes of verbs: , and . Thus, (plural of ) might be considered a deponent verb.
A handful of Swedish deponent verbs are specifically used for reciprocal or continuous meanings. These verbs typically have non-deponent counterparts.
Some other verbs do have an active form but also a deponent one with a different meaning or usage, e.g.:
Finally, some verbs are passive in Danish, but would be translated with active verbs in most other languages, e.g.:
Latin has a few semi-deponent verbs, which have active forms in the present, future, and imperfect tenses, but are deponent in the perfect system.
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