Greek Language and Linguistics - Ancient Greek, mostly Hellenistic

January 8, 2017

Second-position clitics and the syntax-phonology interface

David M. Goldstein (UC Los Angeles) has uploaded a paper on second-position clitics in Classical Greek to Academia.edu. He wrote the paper with Dag T. T. Haug (University of Oslo) using Lexical Functional Grammar as their framework and proposing some revision to the theory on the basis on their findings.

The paper was presented at the Joint 2016 Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar in Warsaw, Poland. Here is the abstract:

In this paper we discuss second position clitics in ancient Greek, which show a remarkable ability to break up syntactic constituents. We argue against attempts to capture such data in terms of a mismatch between c-structure yield and surface string and instead propose to enrich c-structure by using a multiple context free grammar with explicit yield functions rather than an ordinary CFG.

Thanks to Mike Aubrey for pointing this out on twitter!

I’ve added the paper to A Comprehensive Bibliography of
Hellenistic Greek Linguistics.

December 29, 2016February 19, 2023

Καλὰ Χριστούγεννα 2016

Nativity by Jeff Reese — Photo by Jeff Weese

Again this year the flow of traffic that came in to this blog on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was wonderful to see. I appreciate your visit, whether you come to learn about Greek or Greek Linguistics, or even if this time of year is the only time you visit.

Peace and joy to you all.

November 25, 2016

Alan Bunning's Textual Criticism Resources

cntriconforhamepage I’ve updated the homepage to give more prominent placement to Alan Bunning’s Center for New Testament Restoration (CNTR). The transcriptions of New Testament manuscripts he has provided are amazing. Having these available in machine-actionable form is an incredible boon to the work of textual criticism!

I linked the image on the homepage directly to the manuscripts page at CNTR rather than the project homepage to give quick access to the carefully aligned transcriptions. Once you get there, though, the menu at the top of the page gives you quick access to the project’s homepage and other resources to help you understand the transcriptions and the process used to produce them.

We all owe sincere thanks to Alan for his careful and thorough work.

November 24, 2016

A fresh approach to Greek accents

James Tauber has published a short video explaining the accentuation of Ancient Greek words in a way that is more precise than what is found in beginning grammars that deal with the issue. If you don’t follow the argument fully, just watch a second time.

If you have never studied Greek accents before, here are some terms that may help you understand the video:

Syllable Positions

ultima = the last syllable in a Greek word
penult = second to last syllable
antepenult = third to last syllable

Accentuation Patterns:

oxytone = an acute accent (´) on the ultima
paroxytone = an acute accent on the penult
proparoxytone = an acute accent on the antepenult

perispomenone = a circumflex accent (῀) on the ultima
properispomenone = a circumflex accent on the penult

Thank you, James.

November 23, 2016April 14, 2023

GreekLanguage.blog

NOTE ADDED April 14, 2023: The following notice, published in 2016, remains here for historical reasons, but the domain name GreekLanguage.blog is no longer valid. I no longer own the domain name “GreekLanguage.blog”, and you cannot access this blog from there. The “Greek-Language.com/grklinguist” address still works, and it redirects to the secure homepage of this blog (blog.greek-language.com).

You can now access this blog by typing GreekLanguage.blog into the address bar at the top of your browser. GreekLanguage.blog and Greek-Language.com/grklinguist now point to the same place.

Greek alphabet etched in stone — ©️Micheal Palmer

November 22, 2016

New Testament Verbs of Communication

I have added Paul Danove’s New Testament Verbs of Communication: A Case Frame and Exegetical Study to the bibliography.

Danove has been developing his Case Frame analysis since the mid 1990s, and along the way he has contributed significantly to our understanding of the argument structure of Hellenistic Greek verbs. It is good to see this new addition.

November 21, 2016

Additions to the Bibliography

I have added The Greek Verb Revisited to the bibliography here at Greek-Language.com. Each of the papers contained in the book now also has its own entry in the bibliography.

I just found out today that the book is available for Kindle. You can read it on any device with the Kindle app.

November 18, 2016April 14, 2023

γραφὴ ζῶσα Living Language in the Written Word

I’m looking forward to tomorrow (November 19, 2016)! Jonathan Robie and I will present our ongoing work on the communicative Koine Greek course, γραφὴ ζῶσα. Our presentation will take place at the 1:00 pm session of the Global Education and Research Technology section of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).

We will demonstrate the results of combining technology with best practices in second language instruction, where even an ancient language can become a living language for those acquiring it.

We are in San Antonio, TX with a very large number of Biblical Scholars, but our presentation will attract mainly Linguists, Greek Teachers, Software Engineers, and Open Data Geeks. The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is also meeting here. The SBL and the AAR have jointly coordinated their national meetings for many years.

We would love to see you at 1:00 in room 209 of the Convention Center.

Saturday, November 19th

Sunday, November 20th