On June 21, Steve Runge posted a discussion of the placement of the phrase ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου in John 16:23 that can serve as a good example of the usefulness of discourse studies in resolving (or clarifying) difficult textual decisions. NA27 and SBLGNT place the phrase in different locations. Take a look at Steve’s discussion and the comments in response to it if you are interested in this topic.
SBL Greek Langauge and Linguistics Site
On June 30, while I was away at a retreat in the mountains of North Carolina with my daughter, Mike Aubrey announced over at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ that the Greek Language & Linguistics section of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) has a new website up and running. You can find that site at
http://greeklanguageandlinguistics.wordpress.com/
The site has preliminary abstracts for the papers that will be presented in November.
Here’s what the site says about its purpose:
This site has an informational purpose. While it provides some information from past meetings, it will mainly serve to post announcements about future meetings of the Section at SBL and provide details of the papers to be presented.
This seems to hint that more information on the papers will be forthcoming, but it’s hard to tell.
The Greek Language and Linguistics Section of the SBL holds two sessions at each meeting of the SBL. One is an “Open Session” often presenting papers on a wide variety of topics. The other session is “Thematic,” that is, focused on a single theme. This year’s thematic session will focus on discourse markers. If you are interested in discourse studies and their relation to Linguistics, you will want to read the abstracts for the “Thematic Session.” Follow the link above and scroll down to find them.
Lesson 23 Temporarily Disabled
I have temporarily disabled lesson 23 (Imperfect Middle and Passive) pending revisions. Thanks to Carl Conrad for pointing out to me by email some clear ways to improve the lesson. I hope it will serve users of the grammar much better after a few key changes.
Lesson 23: Imperfect Middle and Passive
I’ve uploaded lesson 23: “Imperfect Middle and Passive” to my online grammar. It has six vocabulary exercises, but is still missing a couple of practice exercises for recognizing imperfect middle/passive forms that I will add over the next few days.
The vocabulary exercises consist of a flashcard set, four brief drag and drop vocabulary games, and a practice vocabulary quiz.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you notice any typographical error or other problem.
Stephen Carlson's Blog
I have added Stephen Carlson’s blog, Hypotyposeis, to the blogs page at Greek-Language.com. While the focus of his blog is Christian origins, he has included significant content of relevance to Greek Linguistics.
Recent Posts on Clitic Placement in Other Blogs
I would like to recommend Stephen Carlson’s recent discussion of clitic placement over at Hypotyposeis. He has posted four discussions of key implications of David Goldstein’s dissertation.
- Clausal Clitic Placement in Classical Greek
- Koine Clitic Placement I: Goldstein vs. Taylor
- Koine Clitic Placement II: Goldstein vs. Levinsohn
- Koine Clitic Placement III: Wackernagel’s Law in the First Century?
A little over a year ago, Mike Aubrey had a good bit to say about clitic placement in the New Testament that is also very worthwhile reading (ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ). If you want a refresher on the data, take a look at these posts in particular:
- The Word Order of Clitic Pronouns
- Pronominal Clitics in Noun Phrases: The Data
- Pronominal Clitics: The Difficult Examples
- Pronominal Clitics Attaching to Topics
- Pronominal Clitics Attaching to Verbs with Focal Constituents
- Constituent Order
I would like to thank both Mike and Stephen for the work they have dedicated to this topic.
Correction to exercise 2, lesson 22
I have corrected a typographical error in exercise 2 for lesson 22 (“third person” for “second person”). I’m sorry for any confusion the mistake may have caused.
You can see the exercise at
http://greek-language.com/grammar/22_Resources/Exercise_2_MI_Conjugation.htm
Exercise 2 for Lesson 22
I uploaded a brief new interactive exercise for lesson 22 today. It provides practice recognizing middle/passive forms of the present indicative.
I also expanded the Reading and Translation section of the lesson.
Dissertation Idea? Case and Infinitival Clauses
I’ve been reading Christina Sevdali’s 2007 dissertation, Infinitival Clauses in Ancient Greek: Overt and Null Subjects, the Role of Case and Focus. She deals primarily with Classical Greek, but delves into some Modern Greek data as well, but she does not deal with the hellenistic period. Her work, though, does raise some questions that should be answered for the hellenistic literature.
Sevdali concludes that both agreement and focus play a role in Case marking in Ancient Greek. Here is part of a long paragraph from pages 209—210 in her last chapter that I think could suggest a dissertation idea for someone working specifically on Hellenistic Greek:
There are various languages [in which] Case can be related to discourse phenomena: Blake, 2001 for example reports Australian languages Nyigina and Gooniyandi where this is true. These languages do not show Case concord within a noun phrase, where Case and number and person are marked on every constituent, i.e. the determiner, the noun, the adjective etc., but Case mark only one constituent, the final one, or the head etc. In some cases, they mark the one that is focalised, essentially using Case as a discourse marker. Miyagawa, 2005 argued that languages can either be agreement prominent (like most Indo-European ones) or focus-prominent (like Japanese), implying that Agreement and Focus are the two sides of the same coin. Assuming that Case exists in both types of languages, it is not unreasonable to assume that it can be linked to Agreement and Focus respectively. On top of that nothing prevents us from arguing that there also exist mixed language types. We want to suggest that AG is a mixed language, being agreement prominent in finite clauses, where Case is linked to agreement, and being focus-prominent in non-finite clauses, where Case is linked to focus as we showed.
Okay… Here are dissertation ideas for the hellenistic period: Can recognizing two different ways in which Case may be assigned (Agreement vs Focus) lead to a clearer understanding of morphological Case assignment in Hellenistic Greek? Under what specific circumstances might morphological Case be controlled by Focus in Hellenistic Greek? Does Focus play any role in the Case assignment of optional arguments of a verb? Does it control the Case assignment of any DPs governed by a preposition, especially prepositions whose object DP is not always assigned the same Case. Prepositions played a larger role in the hellenistic koine than they did in the classical period. How does this affect the agreement/focus split if at all?
Any takers? I’d love to see a dissertation addressing any of these issues.
Carl Conrad's view of Ancient Greek Voice (Again)
Carl Conrad has published a new, very brief account of the view of Greek voice that he has been proposing for several years now. You can get a copy of the AGNT Newsletter in which it appears at the link below. The title of the article is “Ancient Greek Voice Forms: Categorizing and Making Sense of Them.”
If you have not yet read Dr. Conrad’s approach to voice, take this opportunity to do so. The new article is short and presents a helpful overview of his perspective—a perspective I believe should become the dominant one with time.
The link below will take you to a page that has not only the new article, but his older, more extensive comments on the topic as well.