[B-Greek] Re: Stanley Porter on Greek Grammars
Dr. Don Wilkins
drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Tue Jan 20 19:31:30 EST 2004
When we taught together, Stan Porter and I sometimes had lively
discussions over his view of aspect and related issues, so I know what
Cindy Westfall is referring to. I also had some interesting discussions
with Olsen over the issues, and I would concur with most that she did a
better job of presenting the case for a linguistic approach to the NT.
However, for what it is worth, I would have insisted back then that she,
Stan, and others of the same bent needed to read much more Greek. I'm
sure there is a good deal to be gained from the general linguistics
approach taken by Stan and others (indeed, they have offered some useful
terminology and categories for grammatical study), but it is no
substitute for a thorough acquaintance with the language itself, and in
my view some of the conclusions that have been maintained (e.g. the
neutralization or voiding of the aorist augment) prove that. Moreover,
attempts to isolate NT Greek from Attic are counterproductive; it is
much better to acknowledge connections and to compare and contrast where
appropriate. But I'm probably saying too much already and risking
offense to those of the other persuasion. To those who want to pursue
the issue further I would recommend a 1996 work by Leslie Threatte, "The
Grammar of Attic Inscriptions", particularly the second volume on
morphology (published, unfortunately, by De Gruyter and consequently
quite pricey). There one can see, quite literally in granite, that the
language is not justifiably subject to the speculation posed by
generalist linguists on verbal aspect. I could say a lot more, but it
probably would be appropriate to do so only off-list. Since I don't want
to invite nasty replies, I should conclude by saying, quite honestly,
that Stan Porter is one of the more brilliant people I have known, Marie
Olsen seems to be equally brilliant (from the limited contact I have had
with her), and I'm sure the other leaders of the linguistic approach are
fine people as well. We can agree to disagree.
Don Wilkins
On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 07:59 PM, CWestf5155 at aol.com wrote:
> Chet,
>
> No, that's how I read it. I meant that I don't think that "desperate"
> characterizes Rod's assessment of Porter.
>
> I think that Stan can be harsh (some call it his "take no prisoners"
> mode).
> I agree with him that Fanning's framework (or point of departure) isn't
> primarily linguistics. On the other hand, Porter has been the source
> of a
> prodigious amount of work on linguistics and the NT as well as other NT
> criticism.
>
> I think that I would disagree with Rod that Porter is more of a
> linguist than
> an NT scholar. He has been involved in a number of other
> disciplines--rhetorical criticism and papyrii come first to mind.
>
> I did see that you produced independent support for Porter's view, which
> interested me. I'm also very interested in your experience with
> Halliday and
> systemic linguistics.
>
> Best regards,
> Cindy Westfall
> Adjunct Professor Denver Seminary
>
>
> In a message dated 1/19/2004 7:41:04 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> creider at uwo.ca writes:
> I think you misread what I wrote. What I said (you can see it below)
> was that Porter's assessment of Fanning was "desperate". It was not
> Rod's evaluation that was desperate. His evaluation was very balanced
> -- much better than mine would have been because I was annoyed with
> Porter's tone (implying that Fanning didn't know any linguistics).
> ---
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