[B-Greek] To Diagram or not to Diagram

Terry and Gail Cook cookie99 at fuse.net
Tue Mar 14 08:48:57 EST 2006


Greetings Alan,
I'm a 3rd year Greek student in a local college setting. We've been 
diagramming for two years. While I certainly see the value of diagramming 
nearly every educational facility in the country has abandoned it (for 
English studies). Perhaps that's the schools' way of making language easier 
or perhaps they've discovered diagramming has little return for the effort. 
I don't know.
In order to properly diagram a Greek passage I think a person needs to be 
proficient in English as well as Greek; I'm not very good at English so that 
may skew my thinking about diagramming value.
As Dr Conrad said some passages in Greek defy intelligent diagramming. One 
problem I've had is genitives being used as indirect objects. Abbot-Smith 
points out a number of these. Prepositional phrases that are used as direct 
objects but are still diagrammed as pp's. Participles have so many functions 
that one cannot become too comfortable with how to diagram them. Participles 
as other parts of speech are diagrammed according to function and this often 
requires exegesis as well as a full command of syntax.
Additionally, there are very few books on diagramming English and even fewer 
on diagramming Greek. I have: Diagramming the GNT by Belcher; Principles and 
Practice of Greek Exegesis by Grassmick; Eric Sowell has an 18 page 
diagramming helper on the Web; Brooks/Winbery have a few pages in their book 
Syntax of NTG and Schreiner has a few pages in his book Interpreting the 
Pauline Epistles. That's ALL! If anyone knows of more please let us know.

Terry Cook
sDg





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan Calcutt" <calcutt at 3web.net>
To: "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 10:45 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] To Diagram or not to Diagram


> Hello,
>
> I have just completed my second year of Greek. Most of the grammar was
> self-taught, together with two others who were working through the same
> books. We have worked through Machen's _New Testament Greek for
> Beginners_; and Dana and Mantey's _A Manual Grammar of the Greek New
> Testament_. In the near future I will be moving and will be continuing
> my studies on my own.
>
> I would like to get the opinion of the group regarding my next step.
> Should I continue to work with the grammar that I have and increase my
> vocabulary . . . maybe for another year? Or should I proceed to work on
> diagramming? Will diagramming assist me with my understanding of the
> Greek language?
>
> Thank you in advance for your input.
>
> Alan Calcutt - Pastor
> Quebec Baptist Church
>
>
>
>
>
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