[B-Greek] "Temporary Crutches" (was "Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data, etc."
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Mar 28 08:49:46 EDT 2010
On Mar 28, 2010, at 8:21 AM, Richard Lindeman wrote:
> I think that there is a problem with Greek grammars generally, both ancient
> and modern. And the problem is that they come off as being far too
> authoritative. I don't see any of them entitled "Grammatical Crutches For
> Learning To Read Biblical Greek". And yet that is precisely what they are.
> They are "crutches" at best and their goal should be to assist a student to
> actually read the Greek and then at some point throw the crutches away like
> the leper hopping and dancing and praising the Lord. I think that it would
> help a great deal if new grammars would incorporate this kind of "crutch"
> mentality not only in the title but also throughout the book. Each major
> new insight concerning Greek grammar should be introduced with a warning
> about its limitations and an encouragement to just read more (perhaps with
> an appropriate reference to specific Greek literature where the student can
> advance his/her understanding of the subject at hand.) The grammar should
> also encourage the student to regularly read Greek even when it makes no
> sense at all, to just get a feel for the language and perhaps offer reading
> assignments apart from itself that regularly exceed the stage at which the
> learner is at. Even intermediate and advanced grammars would do well in
> regularly reminding readers of their limitations and encouraging students to
> read.
I wholly support what Richard has said here, what I read as two points:
(1) the grammar one learns in a primer is a crutch or a training wheel to
get the learner "on one's feet and walking" or "on a two-wheeler and
rolling on one's own"; (2) rules tend to be oversimplifications of authentic
usage in the language: the student should expect to encounter contexts
where a learned rule either does not apply or applies in a qualified manner.
But there's a built-in problem that must be faced in every beginning
language course and in every primer in a new language: no matter where
one begins, it is, as is said of epic poems, "in medias res" -- i.e., in the
middle of a process: the first thing you learn (after the alphabet, at least)
won't make complete sense until you've learned two or three other things.
Mounce's textbook presents all the nouns and then all the verbs (or vice
versa?) -- but in fact, except in the case of a nominal sentence, you can't
really use a noun to say anything meaningful without adding a verb.
That's why most ancient Greek primers begin with first-declension
feminine nouns and simple uncontracted omega-verbs. It is almost
inescapable in presenting the elements of the language that anything
new that you inroduce will depend partly upon somethng that you
haven't yet got to. So: to what extent should the student be warned,
as Richard suggests, that this lesson is a sort of "stopgap" instruction
that will need to be modified further along the course of study.
I tried to do that when I was teaching Greek -- sounding the advance
warnings about modifications that would have to be made to the
explanation of usage now being offered. The problem is that these
advance warnings are more confusing to some students than they are
helpful. Many will remember the point in the course of learning
French the point at which s/he first grasped the principle that
"every rule has its exception" and begins learning those interminable
lists of "verbs that take à" and "verbs that take de" and "verbs
conjugated with avoir" and verbs conjugated with être." This is
a fundamental pedagogical problem in sequencing the items to
be taught in a new language. And I would add something else
that should be obvious: students are different from each other
and so are teachers, and the same process is probably not going
to work as well in every situation.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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