From: Randy LEEDY (Rleedy@bju.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 19 1998 - 13:40:52 EST
Clayton,
I understand your well-founded cautions. My wording "widest possible
acceptance" implies that there is a wideness of acceptance that would
be impossible, on other words, that whatever may be done will be
unacceptable to some. But many if not most of us, I think, would view
as untenable a syntactical model that does not allow us to say with a
considerable degree of consistency among ourselves at least that this
nominative noun is the subject of that verb (distinguishing between
subject and predicate of a copula is one obvious problem area that
warrants a provision for several optional taggings) or this adjective
modifies that noun, etc. I am not yet ready to abandon my conviction
that a database such as I propose would be a great help to the large
majority of us even though none of us would recognize it as perfect.
However, I'm willing to be dissuaded if a strong enough case can be
put up.
Randy
>>> clayton stirling bartholomew <c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net>
11/19/98 01:19pm >>>
Randy LEEDY wrote:
> I would
> put together a document setting forth the working principles to
govern
> the tagging so that there is a consistent approach throughout the
NT.
> I would want feedback on the scope and validity of the tagging
scheme
> to insure the widest possible acceptance of the final product.
>
> If there is significant interest in this idea, I may put together a
> draft of the "working principles" document over Christmas vacation.
> Enthusiasm for this idea from across a spectrum of Greek students
and
> teachers such as B-Greek represents would do a lot to confirm my
> potential sponsor's willingness to proceed with the work. If, on the
> other hand, good reasons can be put forth why the idea is
unworkable,
> then I'll drop it with no further waste of resources.
>
Randy,
The goal of aiming at the "the widest possible acceptance of the final
product" may actually work against you. The Syntax Functional Model
that would
be greeted warmly by the large majority of users would be one which
attaches
functional information to existing morphological categories. This
would be
accepted readily because it corresponds to the way NT Greek is
presented in
the traditional grammars. I think this sort of Syntax Functional Model
would
satisfy a lot of folks but over time as linguistics continues to
encroach on
NT Greek Grammar the deficiencies of this approach will become
apparent.
I think the most difficult part of your task will be to clearly define
a
Syntax Functional Model. One of the things that will make this
difficult is
the plethora of schools of linguistics. It is difficult for people to
talk
about this sort of stuff because you will have Systemic Functional
people
trying to converse with Psycho-linguists and Post-Chomsky types and
Eclectics
and Mavericks and people who simply have no exposure whatsoever to
linguistics. Getting all of these types to converse intelligibly about
a
Syntax Functional Model will be challenging.
The biggest danger in this sort of project is to rush ahead into
implementation before you have hammered out an adequate Syntax
Functional
Model.
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
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