[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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