[B-Greek] More on Funk's intro grammar
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Dec 11 11:36:02 EST 2003
At 9:25 AM -0500 12/11/03, Trevor Peterson wrote:
>>===== Original Message From "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>=====
>>At 3:14 PM -0500 12/10/03, Trevor Peterson wrote:
>Carl wrote:
>
>>(1) Robert W. Funk's 3-volume paperback _A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar
>>of Hellenistic Greek_; my "second, corrected edition" was published by
>>Scholars Press in 1977; this is long since out of print and second-hand
>>copies are difficult to come by. It's true that this textbook takes the
>>Nominal and Verbal systems separately and in succession; it is evidently
>>true also that Funk himself used it with a workbook of readings which, to
>>my knowledge, has never been published but which would be essential for
>>using it as a textbook.
>
>Didn't someone recently publish a link to a listing on Amazon? Anyway, the CUA
>library has all three volumes and the workbook. I have it right here with me
>at the moment, so either I'm hallucinating or there is in fact a published
>workbook. It's also out of print, of course.
OK, I've now seen the workbook noted on amazon.com--I've never seen it in
print, and I notice, (a) that it's done by Lane C. McGaughy rather than by
Funk, and (b) that it's unavailable or available only with difficulty.
>>If I were to teach with
>>this textbook, I would certainly plan to use it in conjunction with
>>readings.
>
>But you apparently don't see a problem with the noun-then-verb configuration.
>Is there a reason that you don't object to it here but do have reservations
>about it in Mounce?
(a) it looks to me a lot easier to adapt to readings chosen by the teacher
than was Mounce's textbook; what I've seen of Mounce's workbook is that it
involves so much straightforward pedagogical material that's not in the
text book that the textbook would be more useful (in my opinion) with that
material INCLUDED in the textbook itself. I've taught twice with Mounce's
textbook and, for my part, I wasn't really satisfied with it. I've never
taught using the Funk textbook because it wasn't available on the few
occasions that I taught NT Greek to beginners.
>[snipped]
>>
>>(2) An altogether different matter is the preparation of a new grammar of
>>Hellenistic Greek that was intended eventually to replace BDF. My
>>understanding is that this was sponsored/promoted by Funk and the Westar
>>Institute and that a committee to develop and produce it was initially
>>headed by Darryl Schmidt;
>
>This looks like deja vu. I'll call your attention to some earlier discussion:
>
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/1999-August/006773.html
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/1999-August/006775.html
>
>A couple of years later, there was a follow-up exchange, in which you seem to
>have forgotten the earlier remarks (or perhaps got more information in the
>interim?):
>
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2002-July/021858.html
>
>It looks to me from the 1999 stuff like the matter was pretty well
>verified--something was in the works to revise both resources.
I think you've misunderstood this exchange--or at least my part in them. I
now see that my note was misleading:
At 11:45 AM -0400 7/15/02, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>Perry, my understanding is that what Darryl Schmidt is working on (with a
>committee) is a new Hellenistic Grammar that is to replace BDF, NOT a
>revision of the Beginning-Intermediate Grammar--that, IMHO, would be "a
>consummation devoutly to be wished." But my impression is that it's based
>upon an outmoded version of Chomsky's transformational grammar.
I meant that the _Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek_ was
supposedly based upon an outmoded version of Chomsky's transformational
grammar--NOT that the new Hellenistic Grammar under supervision of Darryl
Schmidt was based upon the outmoded Chomsky theory.
At any rate, I know that Darryl Schmidt WAS working on a revised version of
BDF because I wrote a recommendation for a grant for him from the NEH to do
work on it. I had great hopes that something more would come of it.
>[snipped]
>>
>>I hope that provides some perspective on the questions raised by Trevor. If
>>I were to be granted three wishes by some Fairy Godmother, I might spend
>>two of them on the re-issuing of the Funk textbook and the completion of
>>the Hellenistic Grammar project.
>
>I'm curious--if the effort to revise the textbook is dead (or never existed in
>the first place), and if no publisher is interested in reprinting it, could we
>look at the possibility of making it available online? If we could get
>permission and find someone willing to host it, it would basically just be a
>matter of someone finding the time to scan the pages and throw together some
>tagging to get around in them. Over time, it might even be possible to
>reproduce the book in html and turn it into a truly Web-based resource. It
>does look like a good textbook, and it's a shame that it can't be made more
>widely available.
Now that is an excellent idea! I think it would be worth far more than many
of the Hellenistic Greek primers now available on-line; it would be
particularly useful, I think, as a reference work for second-year students
and beyond. How could we go about it? The copyright date is 1973; I suppose
one would need permission from Robert Funk; I've been unable to find an
e-address for him; can anyone help with that?
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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