I have added three new exercises to lesson 17. Enjoy.
Update to Lesson 17 on the Greek Present
I just added a short paragraph to the section on usage of the Greek present. Here’s what I added to the end of that section:
- What you can know for sure when you encounter a Greek present form is that the focus is not on when the action begins or ends. The Greek present form indicates imperfective verbal aspect. That is, it conveys a focus on the ongoing action, not on the beginning or end of the process.
This does not change anything I had already said. It just makes the connection to verbal aspect theory a little clearer.
Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part I
Recognizing that readers of this blog represent various levels of competence in reading Ancient Greek and levels of familiarity with Hellenistic Greek texts, I am posting an email I wrote to a user of Greek-Language.com back in 2005 in response to the question, “Did Ancient Greek use punctuation?” If you already know the answer to that question, just skip this post! (Or better yet, comment!)
On Mon, August 29, 2005 I wrote:
Dear __________:
Thank you for your letter. Your question is an interesting and important one, and we have considerable evidence with which to answer it.
The ancient Greeks did not have any equivalent to our modern device of punctuation. Sentence punctuation was invented several centuries after the time of Christ. The oldest copies of both the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament are written with no punctuation.
In addition, the ancient Greeks used no spaces between words or paragraphs. Texts were a continuous string of letters, with an occasional blank line inserted to mark the end of a major section, though even this was not always done.
They also had no equivalent to our lower case letters. Texts were written in all capitals.
While this clearly creates some challenges for Bible translation, those challenge are seldom very large. As a simple test, try reading the English text in the following line:
WHATDOESTHISSAY
With very little difficulty you can probably tell where the spaces should be and what kind of punctuation belongs at the end. You can tell this because you are a native speaker of the language in which the text is written, so you can easily recognize the words as well as the implication of the word order. Native speakers of Ancient Greek, in the same way, could recognize where one word ended and another began even though the spaces were not written. They could also distinguish a question from a direct statement without the need of punctuation.
Here’s the real problem: You and I are NOT native speakers of Ancient Greek.
While I read Ancient Greek quite well, I did not grow up speaking it. All modern scholars, including those who grew up speaking Modern Greek, are in this same situation.
When there is more than one possible way of dividing the words in a sentence or paragraph, or when there is more than one possible set of punctuation, we must look for clues as to what the author intended in order to correctly determine which is the correct division and what punctuation the author would have used if it had been available.
Of course there is an element of subjectivity in this process, but many scholars have dedicated the better part of their lives to reading the Biblical documents in the original languages and have come to have a good sense of the style and preferences of each author. As we develop this skill, it becomes easier to see what the author would most likely have intended in each of the few places where a sentence could be divided more than one way.
If you do not read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, it is important to compare various translations to see what the options for punctuation might be. Then you should ask yourself which punctuation results in something that the author would most likely have said. This may not always provide you with the correct answer, but it will be a valuable learning experience.
Thank you again for your letter. I wish you well in your studies.
Micheal W. Palmer
Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway
http://greek-language.com
Since the writing of this post on December 27, 2010, two other discussions of the lack of punctuation in Ancient Greek have been posted. You can find them by following the links below:
- Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part II
- Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part III (Quotations)
Another topic tangentially related to this one is available here:
| Important! [Added Jan. 19, 2015] |
|---|
| While the earliest manuscripts of the biblical texts did not contain punctuation, it is usually clear to a competent reader of Ancient Greek where the punctuation belongs.
It is a serious mistake to assume that the absence of punctuation in those manuscripts means a person who does not read Greek is free to choose where to put the punctuation in an English translation. To make decisions about where the punctuation belongs it is necessary to read Ancient Greek very well. Many options that would seem to be available in an English text are ruled out by the structure of the Greek text. |
Future Tense Usage
I’ve added a brief, simple note to lesson 18 on the usage of the Future Active Indicative. If you’re using the grammar, you should take a look at it.
Using Pinax and Django for Collaborative Corpus Linguistics (Greek)
If you are interested in web design and the possibilities it presents for collaborative work in Ancient Greek Linguistics, you must see James Tauber’s BibleTech2010 talk (embedded below). It’s almost an hour long, but well worth the time.
James begins by explaining Django, a core tool for managing basic functionality on a website. He then explains Pinax, a product that runs on top of Django to power much of the functionality of social networking sites. He finishes this discussion, though by presenting the possibilities of using this combination to power collaborative work in corpus linguistics, using Biblical Greek as his example.
He is developing precisely the kind of tools needed to do the lexicon project I have in mind. Here’s the talk. Feel free to comment on its implications for Greek Linguistics.
Using Pinax and Django For Collaborative Corpus Linguistics from James Tauber on Vimeo.
Searching the Online Grammar
I have added a search bar to the footer of every lesson in my online grammar and to the top of the list of contents on the Table of Contents page. This should make it somewhat easier to find a particular discussion that might interest you.
The search is powered by Google, and produces a brief text add at the top of each set of search results. It searches only the grammar, not the whole of Greek-Language.com or the web.
Randall Buth on Greek Lexicography
Today I had the pleasure of reading Randall Buth’s article, “Verbs Perception and Aspect: Greek Lexicography and Grammar.” It’s refreshing to read a Biblical Scholar talking about the work of Stephen Krashen on language acquisition.
While I did not find Buth’s argument about the aspect of Greek perfects convincing, his arguments for using the infinitival forms as the lemma in a lexicon is well informed and well presented. He argues for listing both the aorist and present infinitives, giving the aorist first place.
In the early part of the article he gives an insightful and challenging account of what happens in Biblical Greek classrooms and an honest acknowledgment of the results. This account forms the background for his proposal of a different type of lexicon. I would like to propose, though, that his critique has more far reaching implications. For the good of the field, we need major changes in the way Hellenistic Greek is taught. The methods currently employed do not produce fluent readers who can “think in Greek.”
I’ll try to find time later to write a post on the implications of Krashen’s work for the way we teach Greek. I have struggled with this issue for many years.
Smart Board
I have gone through all 21 lessons on a Smart Board to insure that everything works without complication. All of the exercises work perfectly, and the lessons display well enough to be read comfortably.
The Smart Board allows the teacher to highlight key parts of the lesson by simply dragging a finger across them, or write on the lesson with one of the pressure “pens” to highlight particular items.
If you are teaching Greek and have access to a Smart Board, give it a try and tell me what you would like changed, improved, etc.
Database Design and the Hellenistic Greek Lexicon
Over the last few days I have had some interesting conversations with people who design databases (including my eldest son) regarding what would be involved in designing a database to allow lexical information for Ancient Greek to be presented in an extremely flexible manner so that the user of the lexicon could use any form of a given Greek word as the lemma under which to organize the lexicon.
If you are familiar with database design, I would love to hear your comments on this issue. If you are not, I’d be glad to address any questions I’m competent to answer.
How do you think the database should be structured to support the kind of lexicon I have proposed?
What should a lexicon include?
Carl Conrad has raised a valid objection to calling the cumulative vocabulary list for my online grammar a “lexicon,” and I would like to address the reasons he is right. That will also give me the opportunity to lay out my long range plan for what I have called my “online lexicon.”
What is listed in the table of contents of my online grammar as the “lexicon” is not yet truly a lexicon in the correct sense of the word. This is true for at least two reasons. First, it is merely the cumulative list of the words presented in the vocabulary lists for the lessons in my grammar. It is nowhere near a complete presentation of Hellenistic Greek vocabulary. Second, what is given for each entry in the “lexicon” is not what should be included in a work that properly deserves that title. What I have included so far is nothing more than a list of English glosses for each Greek word—a list of possible ways to translate the word into English. A proper lexicon would include discussions of the meanings of each Greek word. Traditionally, Greek lexica for English speakers have also included citations of the literature upon which the lexicon is based, and I have not done this yet.
So why have I called it a “lexicon.” Well… the truth is that I have given it an ambitious title based on what I intend for it to become over time. I didn’t want to call it a “glossary” or “word list”—which might better describe its present state—because I would have to change the title later and possibly some file names, which would complicate links within the grammar. Looking back, I realize I could have made the file names conform to the “lexicon” designation while not calling it that in my blog posts, but I didn’t think of that at the time.
Here’s what I envision the “lexicon” becoming over the next few years. First, it will become a more complete list of Hellenistic vocabulary as the grammar expands. When the last chapter of the introductory grammar is uploaded, I will not stop expanding the “lexicon.” I will begin to add words not included in the grammar.
Second, I will add proper definitions—explanations of the various meanings of each word—over time, but I will not introduce these into the current document until I have completed all or virtually all of them. Writing proper lexical entries takes time and much reading of Hellenistic Greek texts. I do not want the definitions to appear piecemeal.
Third, I will add descriptions of the argument structure of all verbs, prepositions, and deverbal nouns. By “argument structure” I mean the semantic roles these words necessitate in their complements, and the relationships between those roles.
If and when that process is completed, I hope to move on to discussions of the syntactic and semantic properties of other word types.
This will likely be a life-long project. If you have input you would like to offer on particular words or on the structure of an appropriate lexicon, I would love to hear it.
I want the lexicon, eventually, to serve the interests of beginning students, readers of ancient Greek texts who need to quickly find the meaning of a particular word that has them stumped, and exegetes engaged in serious study of Hellenistic Greek vocabulary. It clearly does not meet these goals now. They are targets for the future.
Please offer feedback. I would love to hear it.