[B-Greek] Greek Grammar in terms of Descriptive Linguistics?

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Aug 27 20:09:42 EDT 2005


On Aug 27, 2005, at 2:22 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> It is unquestionable true that  traditional grammar doesn't  
> adequately deal with many fundamental questions that should be  
> raised about how Biblical Greek works. Much of the grammatical  
> terminology is almost if not altogether worthless;

Yes, the metalanguage of traditional grammar reminds me of a 1950s  
tourist trap in Northern California called the Winchester House. It  
was an architectural monstrosity with closets only big enough for one  
broom and staircases that led to nowhere.

I don't think we can talk about language without a metalanguage but  
we can certainly improve on the traditional one which has been  
developed haphazardly over centuries. No current linguist framework  
covers all the bases so one is forced to adopt multiple frameworks  
and multiple metalanguages to deal with semantics, syntax,  
pragmatics ...


Elizabeth Kline







More information about the B-Greek mailing list