The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Stephen Hughes
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Stephen Hughes »

If we are talking about "Biblical Greek" as opposed to a wider understanding of Greek, (possibly without Biblical included)...
Stephen Hughes wrote:There is sometimes call for a wider understanding, and sometimes the meaning within the NT corpus is sufficiently defined in itself (and different from usages outside the corpus) that looking outside would be almost counter-productive. (Not only where there are words with a high frequency, but also things like the σταμνος which means a wine vessel in other literature, but the pot for the mannah in ours. BDAG seems good for pointing cases like this out).
How would a person who was not conversant with Jewish usage of the Greek (and/or Jewish customs) actually understand passages using the word κοινός in the sense of "profane"?, like:
Acts 10:14 (cf. Acts 11:8) wrote:Ὁ δὲ Πέτρος εἶπεν, Μηδαμῶς, κύριε· ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἔφαγον πᾶν κοινὸν ἢ ἀκάθαρτον.
Perhaps it would be as, "I have never drawn from the state's or the public resources" = "I have always lived from my own means."

For a verse like:
Romans 14:14 wrote:Οἶδα καὶ πέπεισμαι ἐν κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ, ὅτι οὐδὲν κοινὸν δι’ αὐτοῦ· εἰ μὴ τῷ λογιζομένῳ τι κοινὸν εἶναι, ἐκείνῳ κοινόν.
. If the Jewish usage / meaning were not familiar to a Greek speaker, I guess this would be difficult to make sense of, especially ἐκείνῳ κοινόν. I guess it would be interpreted out of its cultural context as, "A person the right to use (somebody else's private) property as if it were the common property of others, if that person deems it to be public property." :?

For another example of how "Biblical Greek" could differ from extra-Biblical Greek, you could look at this conversation from a few years ago: ὥρα πατέρος τε καὶ θυγατέρος.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Just a basic question - Is Aresthusa an APP for the phone, a program for the computer or a website? What does one have to do to be able to "play around" with it? Does it require login or download? Is it something like LaTex?
Think of Arethusa as a website that offers a tool for diagramming sentences.

Look at Giuseppe's guidelines before you start annotating.

This will tell you how to get started.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:For another example of how "Biblical Greek" could differ from extra-Biblical Greek, you could look at this conversation from a few years ago: ὥρα πατέρος τε καὶ θυγατέρος.
I don't really understand why you are telling me that the entire corpus is relevant, and that usages in other contexts can shed light on the Greek New Testament. I assume you know that I'm aware of that.

You don't really need a treebank for this particular example.

Different tools are required for different questions. Use the tool that you need. Some tools do not yet exist for the vast majority of Hellenistic Greek. The good news is that they are now evolving. In 10 years, you can tell me that it's stupid to do treebank queries on only the Greek New Testament, leaving out the rest of Hellenistic Greek. Today, you can't give me the tools to do these treebank queries.

So go do a lot of treebanking so you can scold me for not using the treebanks you created. I'm trying to do my part by creating treebanks and figuring out how to query them and teach others to do the same.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:
  • ...
  • The way that two annotators mark up the same interpretation of a given sentence is the same, they agree on how the model is used to represent a given interpretation. For instance, in a given corpus, you don't have one editor that marks the article as the head of a phrase and another editor that would mark the noun as the head of the same phrase.
This fourth one seems like it is more about manageability than quality.
I disagree.

A treebank isn't just for interpreting one sentence at a time, it's a basis for queries to see how the language is used as a whole.

If I look at one syntax tree and look for similar examples, I don't want to miss out on examples or see false instances of examples because each sentence is annotated according to different conventions. For queries, at least, this is a matter of quality. It determines whether the answers I get are trustworthy.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:For another example of how "Biblical Greek" could differ from extra-Biblical Greek, you could look at this conversation from a few years ago: ὥρα πατέρος τε καὶ θυγατέρος.
I don't really understand why you are telling me that the entire corpus is relevant, and that usages in other contexts can shed light on the Greek New Testament. I assume you know that I'm aware of that.

You don't really need a treebank for this particular example.

Different tools are required for different questions. Use the tool that you need. Some tools do not yet exist for the vast majority of Hellenistic Greek. The good news is that they are now evolving. In 10 years, you can tell me that it's stupid to do treebank queries on only the Greek New Testament, leaving out the rest of Hellenistic Greek. Today, you can't give me the tools to do these treebank queries.

So go do a lot of treebanking so you can scold me for not using the treebanks you created. I'm trying to do my part by creating treebanks and figuring out how to query them and teach others to do the same.
You have raised some very interesting future directions, and excellent suggestions for what someone, who wanted to change the world one step at a time could do.

BUT... Actually, within this thread of inter-threads woven together, I was returning to the original conception of "Biblical Greek" paedagogy, and making the point that some things about Biblical Greek are additional to what would be needed in the paedagogy of other types of Greek. It was more of an explication of the comment that I had thrown in earlier.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:
  • ...
  • The way that two annotators mark up the same interpretation of a given sentence is the same, they agree on how the model is used to represent a given interpretation. For instance, in a given corpus, you don't have one editor that marks the article as the head of a phrase and another editor that would mark the noun as the head of the same phrase.
This fourth one seems like it is more about manageability than quality.
I disagree.

A treebank isn't just for intergreting one sentence at a time, it's a basis for queries to see how the language is used as a whole.

If I look at one syntax tree and look for similar examples, I don't want to miss out on examples or see false instances of examples because each sentence is annotated according to different conventions. For queries, at least, this is a matter of quality. It determines whether the answers I get are trustworthy.
That raises questions of how far in a sentence some elements extend.

Take the opening of Galen, On the natural facilities.
επειδή το μεν αισθάνεσθαί τε και κινείσθαι κατά προαίρεσιν ίδια των ζώων εστί, το δ' αυξάνεσθαί τε και τρέφεσθαι κοινά και τοις φυτοίς,

Looking at that, I've been wondering whether the τε και construction allowed or required the κατά προαίρεσιν to go with the αισθάνεσθαι as well. Common sense says that it doesn't, because "feeling" or '"sensory perception" is not something that obe purposes to do then does - not in my understanding at least. But, I'm open to the possibility that other people in other cultures thought of αισθάνεσθαι as happening κατά προαίρεσιν too. In marking up the text for a tree, one or other choice has to be taken. I would take κινείσθαι κατά προαίρεσιν as a single unit "motion for a purpose". That would be restricted to one branch of those trees with κατά προαίρεσιν under κινείσθαι.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:If I look at one syntax tree and look for similar examples, I don't want to miss out on examples or see false instances of examples because each sentence is annotated according to different conventions. For queries, at least, this is a matter of quality. It determines whether the answers I get are trustworthy.
That raises questions of how far in a sentence some elements extend.

Take the opening of Galen, On the natural facilities.
επειδή το μεν αισθάνεσθαί τε και κινείσθαι κατά προαίρεσιν ίδια των ζώων εστί, το δ' αυξάνεσθαί τε και τρέφεσθαι κοινά και τοις φυτοίς,

Looking at that, I've been wondering whether the τε και construction allowed or required the κατά προαίρεσιν to go with the αισθάνεσθαι as well. Common sense says that it doesn't, because "feeling" or '"sensory perception" is not something that obe purposes to do then does - not in my understanding at least. But, I'm open to the possibility that other people in other cultures thought of αισθάνεσθαι as happening κατά προαίρεσιν too. In marking up the text for a tree, one or other choice has to be taken. I would take κινείσθαι κατά προαίρεσιν as a single unit "motion for a purpose". That would be restricted to one branch of those trees with κατά προαίρεσιν under κινείσθαι.
That's not an example of annotating according to different conventions, that's an example of multiple possible interpretations of the meaning of a sentence. That's not a quality issue at all.

On the other hand, existing treebanks do have a weakness here: they generally support one interpretation of each sentence, but multiple interpretations are frequently reasonable. We're slowly working toward allowing our treebanks to support multiple interpretations for comparison, while still having one primary interpretation for the sake of simplicity. But wouldn't it be great to have a useful graphical depiction of various interpretations of a sentence, instead of reading paragraphs of text?

And I'm not aware of anyone who is doing much to systematically compare interpretations made by two different treebanks. I have done a few things with both PROIEL and GBI / Lowfat, I expect to do more over the coming year.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Jonathan Robie wrote: But wouldn't it be great to have a useful graphical depiction of various interpretations of a sentence, instead of reading paragraphs of text?
Is that William Faulkner, or Shakespeare, or Homer, or Charles Dickens whose gasps I hear bubbling up through the dry ground?
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote: But wouldn't it be great to have a useful graphical depiction of various interpretations of a sentence, instead of reading paragraphs of text?
Is that William Faulkner, or Shakespeare, or Homer, or Charles Dickens whose gasps I hear bubbling up through the dry ground?
I don't think I expressed myself clearly. I'm not suggesting people should read trees instead of reading normal Greek prose. That would take all the joy out of it, and would be a rather strange way to read.

I'm suggesting that it's easier to read trees than to read many paragraphs of text in which a commentary tries to explain how they understood the basic structure of a given sentence.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: The Objective of “Biblical Greek” Pedagogy

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Thomas Dolhanty wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote: But wouldn't it be great to have a useful graphical depiction of various interpretations of a sentence, instead of reading paragraphs of text?
Is that William Faulkner, or Shakespeare, or Homer, or Charles Dickens whose gasps I hear bubbling up through the dry ground?
I don't think I expressed myself clearly. I'm not suggesting people should read trees instead of reading normal Greek prose. That would take all the joy out of it, and would be a rather strange way to read.

I'm suggesting that it's easier to read trees than to read many paragraphs of text in which a commentary tries to explain how they understood the basic structure of a given sentence.
Yes, of course. I know. I'm being whimsical.
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