[B-Greek] The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data: An Argumentfor a Large Corpus Size (i.e., Reading WIdely)
Dr. Don Wilkins
drdwilkins at verizon.net
Sat Mar 27 09:54:10 EDT 2010
On Mar 27, 2010, at 3:52 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:
> ...For my money, Smyth and BDF remain indispensable, and ATR
> remains eminently worth consulting because of the breadth of
> Robertson's learning, an extraordinarily judicious assessment of
> questions, and a diachronic perspective on NT Koine the range of
> which I do not find, as does Don Wilkins, excessive.
>
I didn't think that I said ATR's range was excessive, and if it
sounded that way, my mistake. ATR is important for all the reasons
you mention. I just think that he relies too much on very old Greek
to explain Koine. But that's just a judgment call.
> Linguistics-bashing seems to have become a fashionable sport in
> this forum lately. I have played that game myself, sometimes too
> gleefully, I fear. But I have to say that I have found traditional
> grammatical references inadequate in my own studies of ancient
> Greek voice: ATR has some very perceptive comments on the
> inadequacies of traditional voice terminology and offers to a
> careful reader a nuanced account of much of what's going on in
> voice-form usage in the GNT; I have found in Smyth just about all
> the elements needed for constructing a new framework for
> understanding ancient Greek voice -- but the terminology is
> problematic and often misleading and the pieces are scattered all
> over the contents of the grammar. On the other hand, I've come to
> understand more than I can adequately acknowledge about default
> ("active") and reflexive-type dichotomies in many languages and
> gleaned key elements of an understanding of the middle voice in
> Greek from Suzanne Kemmer;. A relatively short paper by Egbert
> Bakker helped me to understand how transitivity, aspect, and
> Aktionsart bear upon voice-forms in Classical Attic. More recently
> a major dissertation by Sidney Allan has set forth a linguistic
> accounting for the nature and development of middle and passive
> forms in Homeric and Classical Greek. I have found these works hard
> reading because of the terminology I've had to become accusstomed
> to, but I have found the effort eminently rewarding and helpful,
> even if they have left some questions unanswered. And I have
> learned from what I thought was a splendid dissertation by Margaret
> Sim on ἵνα hINA and ὅτι hOTI in NT Koine, and I have only
> recently said that I thought Steve Runge's Discourse Grammar of the
> GNT was a breakthrough achievement in making the fruits of a major
> item of linguistic studies accessible to those who have no
> background in linguistics.
>
When you talk I always listen, Carl, but it would help me if you
provided one example. Since I know your passion for analyzing the
middle voice, that would be a good one, but any would do. What
specific linguistic input did you personally find eminently rewarding
and helpful?
> I'm sorry that the insights of linguists haven't had more impact
> upon the preparation of primers in Biblical Greek. There is, of
> course, powerful linguistic underpinning to the oral methods of
> Randall Buth and Christophe Rico. I personally continue to believe
> that the best primer in Biblical Greek in English is still the 1977
> work of Robert Funk, _Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic
> Greek_ (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/funk-grammar/pre-
> alpha/); that was probably much too-heavily grounded in linguistic
> principles to make a dent in Biblical Greek academic pedagogy.
> Ward Powers, who was once an active member of this list, based his
> own primer on his linguistic studies, _Learn to Read New Testament
> Greek_ (http://www.amazon.com/Learn-read-Greek-Testament-cross-
> referenced/dp/0802835783/ref=sr_1_1?
> ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269686771&sr=8-1 = http://tinyurl.com/
> ybstuvp), but I think it was more successful in Australia than in
> the U.S. Linguistic theory has been a major factor in two primers
> for Classical Attic, Athenaze and Reading Greek. NT Koine Greek
> pedagogy, however, seems pretty much stuck in a rut, as witness the
> continued republication of the old fossil textbook of Machen.
I personally like both Athenaze and Machen. Smyth is old too, but
obviously still excellent.
>
> I honestly believe that our best understanding of the "how's"and
> "whys" of ancient Greek usage is tentative and incomplete. We are
> reluctant to try to learn about ancient Greek from the linguists
> but I think we fail to appreciate how tenuous and incomplete,
> sometimes very fuzzy the accounts we are offered by traditional
> grammarians of such things as "objects of passive verbs" or
> "passive imperatives" or "participial imperatives." We cling to the
> traditional grammatical lore of the centuries because it's the only
> lens through which we think we can contemplate the lofty
> complexities of ancient Greek; I think we just hate to conttemplate
> that our vision might possibly be improved by better lenses.
A good defense of linguistics. I think we've already acknowledged
weak areas in traditional Greek grammar. But I'd still like an
example or two of how NT linguists have solved a mystery in
traditional grammar. You tantalize us, or at least me, by the issues
you just listed. In a perfect world, perhaps our Greek grammar would
provide the best from both schools of thought.
I'm going to be gone for a week, so if you grant my requests and I
don't immediately respond, please be assured I will. Many thanks.
Don Wilkins
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