[B-Greek] Death by categories

Bert de Haan dehaanaf at gmail.com
Fri Mar 6 20:04:56 EST 2009


 Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> wrote
on Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:09:11 -0800 (PST)
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Death by categories

> I think we are all laughing with, not at, Mounce when
> he says......

I agree.  I want to mention I have appreciation for the tone of Rico's
post.  He is criticizing something Mounce wrote (and he has every
right to do so) but he does it without attacking the person.

> I know Mounce himself smiles
> at some of the silly grammatical categories that we come up
> with (Genitive after Verbs of Forgetting Your Wife's Birthday)
> but what he is good at is empathizing with those struggling
> to learn Greek.

That is a major plus in his BBG.  He appears to have the autodidact in
mind.  I did not find it hard to stay motivated when I went through
his book.  Staying motivated isn't easy if you are on your own.

> So I look at the notes in Keep's editon and he tells me that
> this is a "poetical accusative of the goal reached."  Now,
> this is silly.  You might as well call it the Accusative of
> Nasal Penetration.  But, somehow, it makes me feel
> better to know this.  Double accusatives do throw off
> newbies, and calling it an Accusative of Oath somehow
> makes us feel better.

Accusative of Nasal Penetration... Almost sound legitimate.  :)
At some point someone would need to know, either by figuring it out on
his own or by being told, that an oath usually is followed by an
accusative, μὰ ἀπόλλωνα δέ, MA APOLLWNA DE, it doesn't have to have a
name.  That said, sometimes a label makes it stick; for instance
Accusative of time how long and Dative of time when.

Bert de Haan.



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