The Purpose of Syntactical Categories

A K M Adam akm-adam at nwu.edu
Tue Jan 4 08:31:24 EST 2000


At 7:16 AM -0600 1/4/00, Tony Stark wrote:

>
>          What is the purpose for the numerous syntactical categories in
>advance grammar?

Tony,

The best explanation I can offer for such categories is that they 
serve as a device for identifying common uses of a particular 
grammatical or syntactical phenomenon. At a beginning or intermediate 
level, these labels serve as a reminder to the student: "Here's a 
genitive--what might it be doing here?" At an advanced level, the 
labels serve as a shorthand for common constructions, in a way that 
should allow students to devote more attention to peculiar 
constructions, and to the nuanced uses to which common constructions 
are put.

Sometimes scholars of Greek feel that they should offer a grammatical 
term for every possible Greek construction; in the same way, students 
sometimes feel betrayed if a Greek writer uses the genitive in a way 
that doesn't fall squarely into one of the categories in her 
textbook. I think both impulses are hazardous; our descriptions of 
Greek ought not be taken as regulative for Greek writers themselves 
(who, of course, had never read our textbooks, nor even a spot of 
English grammar).

Grammatical categories are a heuristic (note the Greek derivation) 
device for simplifying one's interaction with a language--but we get 
into trouble if we construe them as entities more real than the Greek 
texts that they guide us in reading.

Carl Conrad has often expressed his frustration with the 
multiplication of grammatical categories, and Clayton Bartholomew 
occasionally unleashes fulminations against scholars who ascribe 
greater authority to grammatical theories than to the power of the 
language itself. (I hope I'm not misrepresenting either of you, 
gentle friends.)

As I tell my classes year after year, let Greek show you how Greek 
works. Don't try to interpret Greek as a deviant form of English.

Grace and peace,
A K M Adam

-- 
A K M Adam
Seabury-Western Theological Seminary
akm-adam at nwu.edu

"Melius est dubitare de occultis quam litigare de incertis."
Augustine



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