July 2014, Greek Language and Linguistics

July 30, 2014

Updates to the Epigraphy Page

Today I updated the epigraphy page at Greek-Language.com to provide references to two books relevant to the topic.

Bradley H. McLean’s 2011 book, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine, provides a discussion of the evidence from the period of greatest concern for this website and blog. Craig Cooper’s recent collection of essays (2013), Epigraphy and the Greek Historian, provides discussions of specific inscriptions illustrating the nature of epigraphy and its relevance to the task of the historian.

July 28, 2014

Lexicography/Dictionaries Page

I have made a number of changes to the Lexicography and Dictionaries page at Greek-Language.com. Here are the main ones:

I’ve added a section listing Greek Lexica in Print and provided opportunities to purchase them. I’ve included BAGD, Louw & Nida, and Sakae Kubo’s small readers lexicon.
A new section on dictionaries of linguistics in print describes the two most commonly used ones and provides opportunities for purchase.
I’ve updated the section on Ancient Greek Lexicographers to add links to appropriate articles at Wikipedia.

I hope you find these additions helpful.

July 18, 2014

The Representation of Speech Events in Chariton's Callirhoe and the Acts of the Apostles

I have just added Adrian Smith’s new book on Speech Events to the Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics.

Smith, Adrian T. The Representation of Speech Events in Charitons Callirhoe and the Acts of the Apostles. Linguistic Biblical Studies 9. Brill Academic Publishers, 2014.

Two things about this book caught my attention. First, it is—as far as I know—the first book-length treatment of speech events in Hellenistic Greek. Second, it deals with two texts, one from the Greek New Testament, and the other from Hellenistic Greek outside the Christian canon. This is something I have longed to see for some time. We need to push our analyses of the language beyond the confines of the literature of our faith. If Smith’s proposals hold true for both early Christian texts and texts from the wider Hellenistic literature, he will have accomplished something of real note.

July 10, 2014

More Additions to A Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics

I have continued to update the bibliography today in a number of ways. There are now more that twice the number of works available for purchase through Amazon.com directly from the bibliography than before. There are also many more articles available either for purchase or for reading online without charge.

To distinguish between articles for a fee and those available without charge, I have devised a consistent convention for linking:

For articles available for a fee, I have linked the title of the journal to the site where the fee must be paid.
For articles available for reading without charge, I have linked the title of the article to the online text.

I have also added the following book:

Lee, John A.L. A History of New Testament Lexicography. Studies in Biblical Greek. Peter Lang International Academic Publisher, 2003.

I eventually hope to connect all dissertations in the bibliography to University Microfilms for easy purchase, but I have not made much progress on this yet.

I hope you enjoy the improvements.

July 9, 2014

Additions to A Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics

I have added the following items to the Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics:

Cirafesi, Wally V. “ἔχειν πίστιν in Hellenistic Greek and its Contribution to the πίστις Χριστοῦ Debate.” Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics. 1:5-38, 2012.
Danove, Paul. “Features of the Conceptualization of Transference in the New Testament.” Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics. 2:5-28. 2014.
Huffman, Douglas H. Verbal Aspect Theory and the Prohibitions in the Greek New Testament. 2nd Ed. Studies in Biblical Greek. Peter Lang, 2014.
Runge, Steven E. Discourse Studies and Biblical Interpretation: A Festschrift in Honor of Stephen H. Levinsohn. Logos Research Systems, 2012.

Of course, this bibliography can never be truly comprehensive, contrary to what the title may imply, because the field is not static. As new works appear that fulfill the narrow criteria for inclusion, I add them to make the bibliography as comprehensive as possible.

If you know of works that you think should be included, please recommend them. You can use the “Bibliography” link in the main menu to do that. That link will take you to a page that explains what kinds of works are accepted, and gives you a form to make your recommendation easily.

I hope you enjoy the new additions.

July 8, 2014

On Generating the Greek Noun Phrase

After many years away from seriously analyzing Greek Noun Phrases I am rereading Cheryl A. Black and Stephen Marlett’s article “On generating the Greek noun phrase” (Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session. 40: 89-105, 1996). I wish it had been published a couple of years earlier. I would love to have had a copy while I was writing Levels of Constituent Structure.

If you are interested in Greek phrase structure and understand the symbols DP, NP, XP as labels for types of phrases, you should be able to understand the article well. You can download your own copy if you’re interested or read it online at the same location.

July 7, 2014

A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek

Image of book

A reprinted edition of Robert Funk’s A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek was published in July of 2013. While a lot has happened in Linguistics and the study of Ancient Greek since this grammar was originally published in 1973, I welcome this reprint. In 1973 this book (at that time in three volumes) was revolutionary, and it is still very useful. The book focusses on sentence types, and the bulk of linguistic theory has moved beyond that discussion now, but for students learning the language, Funk’s approach works very will.

UPDATE July 9, 2014:

Most of the content of Funk’s Beginning-Intermediate Grammar is available online at no charge via ibiblio.org. You can access it here:

Funk’s Online Grammar

July 7, 2014

Thank You

Top50 I would like to thank you for helping this blog reach the Top 50 Biblioblog ranking again this quarter. The summer rankings can be viewed here.

I have been somewhat slack on updating the blog recently, so I am particularly pleased to see it still remaining useful. I hope to be more active for the rest of the Summer.