[B-Greek] Comprehensive 1c Bilingual Koine Greek Dictionary [*Webster's]

John Wilking jcwilking at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 21 16:51:37 EDT 2008


Randall,

I'm only taking a few ideas from UG, not the whole package obviously, and I tend to stay away from metalanguage semantics like Anna Wierzbicka's primes.

Also it appears that a good bilingual dictionary can heighten awareness of good Greek just as is done in comparative studies.  This can be done by laying out more extensively the different sytagmatic patterns of words.  This is what William Frawley was attempting to do in the mid 80s.  He called it an attempted coup of the North American Dictionary Association.

John

 




--- On Thu, 8/21/08, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
> Subject: Comprehensive 1c Bilingual Koine Greek Dictionary [*Webster's]
> To: jcwilking at yahoo.com
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008, 3:25 AM
> Ok, now that terms are clearer, we can talk theory.
> I've put Webster's in brackets in the subject line
> with * [linguistic notation for 'not'] because the
> name Webster is now
> irrelevant. It was a cipher for "monolingual".
> 
> First, to remove a redherring, then clarify:
> On 'universal grammar', that is practically
> irrelevant to dictionary
> making. That deals with structural relationships and
> probabilities of
> structural cooccurrence within a language. It does mean
> that an
> SOV language will likely have post-positions (as opposed to
> prepositions), and it means that ancient Greek is not
> likely to have
> a good lexeme for the neo-english metalanguage
> "postposition".
> So what? For example, the mapping of kinship terms must be
> done
> in Greek, ancient Greek. They won't map exactly like
> English and
> universal grammar will not decide or define anything. There
> is some
> potential in something like Wierzbieka's (sp?)
> universal component
> analysis being applied, but the field is filled with mines.
> 
> back to theory-
> Theoretically there is no problem with calling a bilingual
> dictionary an
> expansion of a mono. But practically speaking it hides the
> actual
> relationships and the status of Greek. A Greek mono
> doesn't exist.
> 
> What is truly a desideratum is a Greek-Greek tome.
> 
> On bilinguals--
> I am only interested in a bilingual dictionary, in any
> case, if it were
> restricted to 1-2 centuries CE. That would be of service to
> us, since
> nothing currently exists.
> "Ask the question: when Luke used
> the word 'xyz' in Acts 21, what other options for
> that word
> probably or certainly existed in the first century?"
> The answer is not easy to extract from current resources.
> That would
> be useful and could be started before a mon-lingual
> dictionary was
> started or in place. I would not call that a *Webster's
> Greek-Eng-Eng-
> Greek.
> Better would be a "comprehensive first century
> bidirectional
> Greek-English English-Greek dictionary".
> That is needed.
> ERRWSO
> IWANHS
> 
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 2:16 AM, John Wilking
> <jcwilking at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Randall,
> >
> > I wasn't confusing but equating them. A bilingual
> dictionary is an expansion of a mono.  This is the part that
> Chomsky doesn't have problem with.
> >
> > To approach Greek/English lexicography from this
> perspective first concedes that Carl Conrad is absolutely
> correct in saying that translation  should hold a distant
> second place to language learning.  I'm inclined to
> think that it shouldn't even be considered by a
> professional for at least twenty years.  It takes
> anthropologists twenty years to sufficiently learn exotic
> living languages, how much more a dead language.
> >
> > Anyway, having a monolingual First Century Koine
> Dictionary in place, we could apply Universal Grammar
> concepts to lexicography.  The notion of converting a mono
> to a bi as briefly mentioned above would be my first notion.
>  I don't like to mention names but William Frawley,
> editor of the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, is
> inclined to think that I'm correct, though I know that
> that doesn't make it so.  My apologies to Noam and Bill
> for hauling them into this proposal.
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> > --- On Wed, 8/20/08, Randall Buth
> <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: Webster's Koine Greek Dictionary
> >> To: jcwilking at yahoo.com
> >> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> >> Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 4:56 AM
> >> wilking egrapse
> >> > The main point is to see a bilingual
> dictionary as a
> >> set of translations:
> >>
> >> to repeat: the main point of a "Webster"
> or
> >> "OED" is a monolingual dictionary.
> >> to talk about a bilingual Webster is to confuse
> the issue
> >> that was raised.
> >>
> >> If you want to talk about bilingual dictionaries I
> suggest
> >> that the
> >> subject line
> >> be changed.
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Randall Buth, PhD
> >> www.biblicalulpan.org
> >> randallbuth at gmail.com
> >> Biblical Language Center
> >> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for
> Life
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life


      



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