[B-Greek] Death by categories

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Mar 5 16:32:02 EST 2009


Forwarded to the list for Rick Brannan:

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rick Brannan <rick at pastoralepistles.com>
> Date: March 5, 2009 2:38:04 PM EST
> To: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> Subject: RE: [B-Greek] Death by categories
>
> Hi Carl.
>
> I'm not subscribed directly to B-Greek, so if you want to pass this  
> along to the group, please feel free.
>
> I should say that I'm not opposed to the task of trying to describe  
> what language is doing, and using labels as a way to quantify and  
> understand different tasks that languages have. I am opposed to  
> using such labels prescriptively, and I think (hope?) the following  
> ellipsed sentence from the blog post conveys this:
>
> "I do, however, begrudge the notion that I need to have a label in  
> order to justify a translation, because the labels quickly move from  
> explanation of translation to prescription for translation. ...  
> Assigning the label becomes the task, with understanding (and  
> translation) following; when the reverse of that process should  
> really be what's going on."
>
> Blessings,
>
> Rick Brannan
> rick at pastoralepistles.com
> http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog
> http://www.pastoralepistles.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org 
> ] On Behalf Of Carl Conrad
> Posted At: Thursday, March 05, 2009 9:44 AM
> Posted To: bgreek
> Conversation: [B-Greek] Death by categories
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Death by categories
>
>
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:29 AM, James Spinti wrote:
>
>> A very nice post by Rick Brannon about translation and categories
>> for cases. A short snippet to whet your appetite:
>>
>> But all of that stymies me. I'm really supposed to know (and
>> recall?) all that hooey before I can translate ὁρκίζω σε
>> τὸν θεόν as "I implore you by God"? The label doesn't help me
>> understand the Greek any better, it gives one shorthand to English
>> it (lemma + parsing/declension + force labels == English
>> translation). Actually, I may even be understanding the Greek less
>> because I'm relying on the label to tell me how to English something
>> instead of actually understanding the Greek itself. Doesn't the
>> occurrence of ορκιζω along with the double accusative (σε +
>> τον θεον) clue me in to something different going on without
>> having to label the blasted thing "accusative of oath"?
>> --
>> The whole post is here:
>> http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog/2009/03/03/IReallyDontLikeCategories.aspx
>> Or, TinyURL:
>> http://tinyurl.com/caune9
>
> Yes, yes, yes, yes. Before long now the software will take care of it
> all for us, including translation, once we get the algorithms all
> figured out -- sometime about the middle of next year -- and then the
> only persons needing actually to KNOW Biblical Greek will be the
> people who program the software for us, assuming that we trust them to
> do all of our thinking for us.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
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