Page 1 of 2

PAWAG: Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek

Posted: July 20th, 2014, 8:46 am
by cwconrad
This project is hosted at the University of Genoa in Italy.

http://www.aristarchus.unige.it/pawag/index.php

The project Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek (PAWAG) has the aim of setting up a database in the form of an electronic dictionary that gathers together words of Ancient Greek that are either only scantily attested (i.e. with one or few occurrences), inadequately (i.e.characterized by some sort of uncertainty) or in any case problematically, both from a formal and semantic point of view.
 
The project is open to international collaboration and the archive will be drawn up through progressive expansion both in the number of entries and their contents, with gradual correction and updating and elimination of any ghost-word.
 
The database is available free and offers a scientific tool for scholars in the research on classical world as well as a supplement to the existing dictionaries of ancient Greek (in which satisfactory attention can hardly be paid to the complex field of Poorly Attested Words), in order to make a contribution to future improvement of Greek lexicography.

Re: PAWAG: Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek

Posted: July 21st, 2014, 5:45 am
by RandallButh
Thanks.

I wonder if the project will include things like the first person aorist optative of σχεῖν would it be σχοῖμι or σχοίην?
or what would be the preferred aorist forms of πέτεσθαι 'fly'?
Even common words can have poorly attested holes.

Re: PAWAG: Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek

Posted: July 21st, 2014, 7:30 am
by Stephen Carlson
Unfortunately, the Greek does not display properly on my desktop at work. It appears that the web site does not use Unicode for its Greek text, which is frankly unconscionable in this day and age.

Ghost-words

Posted: July 21st, 2014, 11:39 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:elimination of any ghost-word
Just a question from the dumb kid at the back of the class...

What is a "ghost-word"?

Re: Ghost-words

Posted: July 21st, 2014, 11:55 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:
cwconrad wrote:elimination of any ghost-word
Just a question from the dumb kid at the back of the class...

What is a "ghost-word"?
My dictionary says:
ghost word
noun
a word that is not actually used but is recorded in a dictionary or other reference work.

Re: Ghost-words - The Suda

Posted: July 22nd, 2014, 5:14 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:
cwconrad wrote:elimination of any ghost-word
My dictionary says:
ghost word
noun
a word that is not actually used but is recorded in a dictionary or other reference work.
Why is it thought suitable to eliminate them from a dictionary?

Sometimes all we have left of some pre-colonial languages are a few word-lists, a sketch of the grammar and a partial translation of the Bible. Eliminating words from a dictionary just because no texts containing them survive is counter-intuitive.

The ancient and medieval word-lists are a form of evidence for some part of the language that are not actually "used" in extant texts, it's being in the dictionary suggests that at some point it was used. I've heard from others that the Suda has many such words in it.
Stephen Carlson wrote: It appears that the web site does not use Unicode for its Greek text, which is frankly unconscionable in this day and age.
The entries from Xi from the Suda online also appear to have the same characteristic.

Re: Ghost-words - The Suda

Posted: July 22nd, 2014, 6:17 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:
cwconrad wrote:
cwconrad wrote:elimination of any ghost-word
My dictionary says:
ghost word
noun
a word that is not actually used but is recorded in a dictionary or other reference work.
Why is it thought suitable to eliminate them from a dictionary?
In terms of this definition, one of the most common ancient Greek "ghost words" is ποιέω -- it's in the dictionaries and word-lists, it's taught as ποιέω, but that uncontracted form is not found in Greek literature. Many of us think that we should indeed eliminate it and use the contracted infinitive ποιεῖν as a lemma instead of using a ghost word.

Re: PAWAG: Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek

Posted: July 22nd, 2014, 1:16 pm
by Shirley Rollinson
Stephen Carlson wrote:Unfortunately, the Greek does not display properly on my desktop at work. It appears that the web site does not use Unicode for its Greek text, which is frankly unconscionable in this day and age.
it uses SPIonic - available from their site, and also from http://www.drshirley.org/fonts/index.html

Re: Ghost-words

Posted: July 22nd, 2014, 1:19 pm
by Shirley Rollinson
Stephen Hughes wrote:
cwconrad wrote:elimination of any ghost-word
Just a question from the dumb kid at the back of the class...

What is a "ghost-word"?
The dumb kid is the one who doesn't ask the question.
The smart kid is the one who realizes that he doesn't know, and has the guts to ask.

Re: PAWAG: Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek

Posted: July 22nd, 2014, 1:59 pm
by RandallButh
Not sure that I would call ποιέω a ghost word in the light of Ionic (and we won't forget Lucian's syrian Goddess).

However, I would heartily agree that no one should use SPIonic. Even 8 years ago I sugmitted an article to Brill in unicode rather than retype in Ionic. Let the hard copy publishers retype something as they wish in house.

For public dispersal and access only unicode should be used and I would not invest in a data base without unicode.