Re: Sentence Diagramming
Don Wilkins (dwilkins@ucr.campus.mci.net)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 09:37:27 -0800
At 02:59 PM 11/12/97 -0800, Mike Griffin wrote:
>My name is Mike Griffin and I live in Seattle, Washington. I am a
>software engineer with an interest in New Testament Greek. I studied
>Attic Greek under Dr. Bruce Grigsby and he teaches using deductive
>methods, one method we used heavily when we translated Greek was
>sentence diagramming. I find sentence diagramming to be very useful
>when studying the Greek text. I know many don't like this method,
>finding it to rigid or simplistic, but I find that it forces me to
>examine the text in greater detail.
>
>I have been toying with a program I have written in Visual C++
>(Microsoft's environment for Windows) that parses Greek words based on
>rules (rather than a dictionary) it's pretty neat but very unfinished.
>I plan to finish it but later. I really need a sentence diagramming
>tool for New Testament Greek, then I could study the Greek at a much
>greater pace. It is very difficult to diagram using pencil and paper as
>the diagram is in a constant state of flux and it's final size and
>breadth is hard to predict. The way I approached this problem during
>school was to use Microsoft Word (taking advantage of the line drawing
>tools and such) but I spent 80% of my time fighting Microsoft Word
>because it is not designed for this purpose and the other 20% of my time
>I spent actually learning Greek.
>
>What I would like to do is be able to cut and paste the Greek Text from
>Logos Bible Software (or any electronic form of the text) and plop the
>words down on the "Window". Then drag and drop words onto each other in
>which case I would be prompted to determine the relationship, i.e.,
>subject/verb - direct object, adjective, genitive absolute and so on.
>This would automatically and interactively produce a very attractive
>sentence diagram and could be printed and used as my personal
>commentary.
>
>1) Does anyone out there agree with me that Sentence Diagramming is
>useful when studying the text?
>2) Does anyone have C++ programming experience that would be willing to
>help?
>
>I would make this tool public domain (freeware).
>
>Mike Griffin
Mike, I've done sentence diagramming for Greek and I think it's an excellent
idea, because it holds one accountable for the grammar of the passage and
can reveal things that might otherwise be missed. I also have C++ experience
and would be willing to help. However, time is very hard for me to find and
I have two other programming projects on my plate at the moment. Also, I've
been working on the Mac rather than a PC, but I do have access to a PC and
plan to get VC++ ASAP (trying to get the academic version to save some $$).
Don Wilkins