Funk's 3-volume set

Edward Hobbs EHOBBS at WELLESLEY.EDU
Fri Aug 13 11:28:11 EDT 1999


Colleagues, and Perry:

Well, I can't be right all of the time -- or maybe even much of the time.
Perry Stepp has written me that Daryl Schmidt did in fact say just exactly
that he was revising Funk's 3-vol. textbook.

(In a kind tactic, he wrote me privately about this, rather than denouncing 
me in public.  So I get to publicize my error myself.)

If this is true (and I suspect it is, since Perry explicitly discussed this 
with him), it probably means that Schmidt will quietly strip away the 
structuralist trimmings and gobbly-de-gook, and retain the many good things 
about the set--and, I hope, cast it into a more contemporary understanding 
of language.  When Daryl finished his Ph.D. 20 years ago last June, he
had strict orders from me to get a new, really usable, but really 
contemporary, textbook for beginning Greek students (I think I said within
five years!--professors do dream, don't we?).  This may be the alternative 
mode of fulfilling that order.

Anyway, thanks to Perry Stepp for this clarification (and correction).



Edward Hobbs


-------------------Perry Stepp wrote-------------->>>>>>>>>>>>


From: Edward Hobbs <EHOBBS at WELLESLEY.EDU>


>(3) I cannot believe that Daryl would want to revise Funk's textbook.  That
>text was written entitrely under the spell of structuralism, well after it
>had been demolished by Chomsky's work in T-G (Chomsky did his doctorate
>under one of the greatest structuralists, Zellig Harris).  Not only was
>Funk's text based on structuralism, it was based largely on the once-
>popular version of it as applied to English by C. C Fries.

This was precisely my understanding, however.  Dr. Schmidt and I were
talking about Funk's *Beginning-Intermediate Grammar*--actually, we were
specifically talking about his review (in JBL?) of Winbery's *Morphology*,
in which he (Dr. Schmidt) comments on their debt to Funk.  I mentioned that
I had been really impressed with parts of Funk's BIG, and Dr. Schmidt said
that he was in charge of revising it.

Unless I completely misunderstood him--which is possible, I suppose.

I'm sending an email to him.  Hopefully he'll clear this up.

Perry L. Stepp






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