Technology and Grammar

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Aug 16 14:15:34 EDT 2002


At 2:53 PM +0000 8/16/02, Mark Wilson wrote:
>Carl:
>
>You wrote:
>
>--------
>>If there is going to be a discussion of this topic, I hope that we can keep
>>it reasonably clearly focused upon linguistic approaches to and analysis of
>>Biblical Greek grammar rather than upon broader issues of epistemology and
>>linguistic theory.
>-----
>
>Here is an example that I hope illustrates what is behind
>my question.
>
>1. Take a sample of Greek literature that has been parsed.
>
>2. Convert this over to an English counterpart, with translation
>and parsing (in English). This is where the program looks.
>
>3. Run a program that compares all participles with their related
>main verbs, to the extent that this can be done... in other words,
>there will be some anomalies.
>
>4. Count the number of Aorist participles that are positioned
>before and after the main verb.
>
>5. Look at the English to determine if a past tense English verbal
>was used to translate those that appeared BEFORE the main verb.
>
>6. Do the same for those that appeared AFTER the main verb.

So far as I can tell, this little exercise tells you what the analyzers who
do the converting think the English counterparts of these participles are.
It is essentially circular, revealing essentially what the analyst's
judgment of these aorist participles is. But what is sought, I thought, is
a basis for the analyst to make such a judgment.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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