[B-Greek] Best book/appendix for Comprehensive Chart of Forms?

Louis Sorenson llsorenson at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 24 16:47:10 EDT 2009


Of all the Greek books I have used, Smyth is the one that has satisfied most of my needs. Mounce's Biblical Greek Morphology is the perfect companion to Smyth (which I neglected to add to the list of books). I have often thought that an 'amended Smyth' , one that adds a Koine section with Koine notes below his forms would be a 'great project.' If anyone ever produced a Smyth+Koine, it would sell like hotcakes. I don't just read the NT. I read a lot of secular Greek literature also. Smyth 'has it all' and brings in other literature than the NT. It also has glosses for every Greek example -- it is a book for students; even many NT Greek books just show the form a a word without a gloss as to what it means.

But for intermediate students, at least three things are needed:
1) an understanding of morphology - predictable changes. It is the job of the teacher/intro book to make sure the student understands this from the start. I believe there is very little 'conditioning' happening in most Greek classes.
2) a good chart of 'predictable forms'. 
3) a way to know when verb/noun forms may be unpredictable and how to deal with such situations.

Smyth has a chart of 'Irregular Mi Verbs'. http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.9:4:43.perseusmonographs. 

One of the problems of Smyth, is, say, regarding the verb εἰμί EIMI
§768 P. 211.  The Koine forms of the imperfect HMHN, HS for the 1S and
2S are not listed.   Such sections like that in Smyth are are good
example of where Smyth falls down for Koine. But such instances are few
and far between (imho).

So what people need to know in addition to the 'predictable' is which words are 'unpredictable.' and how to deal with them. When I think about shoving Smyth or Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek onto students, I fear they will be scared by the complexity of language. One could teach a whole 2 year course on all the oddities of Greek. What I would like is a 20 page insert for the UBS of predictable forms, along with some aids for 'unpredictable' forms. 

Using the aorist tense and infinite as the 'base form' as Buth does or as others have suggested is one of the changes that is needed. Everytime I teach an irregular Greek present tense, I always let students know they will see the word differently in other tenses, e.g. PRASSW > PRAK/PRAG.  You never see an SS anywhere than in the present.

I just don't understand how the year can be 2009, and such a standard basic NT 'goto forms' reference has not been in existence for the last 40 years (Smyth has been around for almost 100 years). If anyone comes up with a print forms insert for the USB to match/complement the USB lexicon, I'm sure that 'insert' could become a standard for many years to come. 

Note: I do have the chart of all verb forms from Dana and Mantey, Hale 'Let's Study Greek' and other fold out charts. I have found that many students I have taught have spent countless hours creating such a chart. The laminated chart of Mounces 'Basics of Biblical Greek' most likely fills this need. What I am looking for is not just a verb paradigm chart, but a Noun, Number, Adjective, Pronouns, Verb insert which is the chart a person could use for the next 10 years of their study of Koine Greek.

I'm sure many other still have input to give on this subject. I have till next Wednesday to tell my students "Buy this book". What should I tell them? 
Thanks again.

Louis Sorenson



> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Best book/appendix for Comprehensive Chart of Forms?
> From: cwconrad2 at mac.com
> Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:56:13 -0400
> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> To: llsorenson at hotmail.com
> 
> 
> On Sep 24, 2009, at 11:20 AM, Louis Sorenson wrote:
> 
> >
> > What are people's favorite chart/book to use for a COMPLETE list of  
> > forms. I'm looking for something that includes full paradigms of all  
> > the nouns, adjective, pronouns, numbers, verbs, irregular verbs,  
> > etc.. It's for an intermediate class who really has had no "go to"  
> > list of charts, just an incomplete and hard to read beginning  
> > grammar appendices' "list of forms". Preferably, it has  side-by- 
> > side comparisons of different moods for the verb, esp. the  
> > indicative and subjunctive. I have not seen the out of print  
> > "Enchiridion". Personally, I use Smyth, but that is overkill for  
> > many. Mounce could be a good goto grammar but the indexes are so  
> > poor and often when I have told intermediate students to find a form  
> > in the back, it is missing. Preferably, the book is a standalone  
> > list, available in print at a low cost.  It would also be great for  
> > it to be the size of a USB GNT - I would not mind having a list  
> > myself in the back of my GNT when I am stumped.
> 
> I have mixed feelings about the question raised here. On the one hand,  
> I have always enjoyed perusing these morphological paradigm lists and  
> once had a polychrome chart about 24" x 14" with as complete an outlay  
> as I've seen (although, as others have noted, there's no way to get  
> the whole array of the Greek verbal system in all its idiosyncracies  
> into a neat chart; something will always be omitted or its variants  
> ignored). On the other hand, I am inclined to doubt whether these  
> charts are really all that useful in pedagogical terms. I'm not  
> convinced that even memorization of these charts bears much fruit in  
> terms of instant recognition of forms in a page of printed (previously  
> unseen) Greek text.
> 
> As for what's currently available, I think anybody who's serious about  
> ancient Greek should find Smyth useful. Maybe there is too much there,  
> but I haven't found errors and I've always been able to find what I'm  
> looking for somewhere in Smyth's morphological charts. Yes, there are  
> some points where NT Koine morphology deviates from that of Classical  
> Attic, but there aren't many.
> 
> Another extremely useful item in Smyth is the complete listing of  
> irregular forms of all the major irregular verbs in ancient Greek:
> http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.9:7:1.perseusmonographs
> Many of those are not NT Koine verbs, but I think the NT Koine verbs  
> are included. In my opinion, these lists are as well worth close study  
> as are whole entries for major words in BDAG.
> 
> What I think is really needed is a thorough grasp of the principles of  
> formation of verbs and noun -- chiefly verbs, because the nouns are  
> not nearly so complex. One needs to know the principal parts of all  
> the irregular verbs; one needs to know how prefixes and augments and  
> tense-stems and connecting vowels (thematic vowel) combine with  
> personal endings, infinitive endings, participial infixes, etc. One  
> needs to know the basics of historical Greek phonology to understand  
> how the underlying elements that combine with each other have  
> transformed so that analogous forms are not immediately apparent (e.g.  
> the third-plural ending OUSI is the phonological derivative from O- 
> NTI). And ultimately, one needs to have those principles clearly  
> understood so that one can analyze complex verb forms of unknown verbs  
> in the course of reading and analyze them into their distinct  
> formative elements so as to discern the verb root and the more likely  
> lexical lemma of the verb.
> 
> Some materials that I used to use as class handouts for this purpose  
> are accessible as PDF files on my page of "Course Materials from Years  
> Past" at
> http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/current.html
> They are in need of revision, but the materials of this sort that I  
> put together in the 1990's include:
> "Compendium of Greek Phonology" (http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/docs/CompPhon.pdf 
> )
> "An Overview of the Ancient Greek Verb" (http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/docs/AncientGreekVerb.pdf 
> )
> "Irregular Verbs GNT" (http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/docs/IrregularVerbsGNT.pdf 
> )
> 
> 
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 
> 
> 
 		 	   		  
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