> > MAQQAIOS EGRAYEN > (this is the "email aorist" function, and please no laughter from lurkers) > >Can fluency ever be reached without native > >speakers? > Randall GEGRAPTAI > Can a mountain be climbed without trying? Obviously not. But if you try Everest without a guide you will likely end up dead. Not entirely relevant to trying to speak a dead language. > While native speakers are best, no argument there, it is actually possible > to learn languages from and with 2nd language users. It happens alot in > multilingual environments. > I'm sure it does. We agree that we have no native speakers... but where are these 2nd language users? Aren't second language users those who have become fluent through interaction with native speakers? LEGEI Randall > On ancient precedent, wherever possible, > never trusting modern output, > yet using it and mixing it with as much linguistic sense as possible. And > in class I use alot of FSI type drills that restrict students from creative > neologisms. Sorry can you help me out... FSI? >I still need to build/write and record a plethora of materials > to get students or teacher to high levels of 'lively discourse'. > Examples of refined learning: > Giving commands forces one to use imperatives. That means lots of simple > aorist imperatives getting internalized before some students even know a > continuative form: > DOS before DIDOU or DIDWMI and > FAGE before ESQIE. Hmm? What if present imperatives have nothing to do with continuation? Perhaps they have a primary discourse function foregrounding the process in question. Drilling is great... but there is nothing so difficult to unlearn as something that has slipped (or been pounded) into your subconscious. > Of course, a few commands were idiomatically continuative as a norm. > PROSECE: ('be being careful') one slowly corrects for those. How much performance data do we need to be able to recognise such idioms? Corpus-based studies seem to indicate a hundred million words plus for many lexical observations. > And I've become more acutely aware that aorist infinitives are the closest > thing to an abstract verb in Greek, despite 1st person present > dictionaries. ('fagei~n' is 'to eat' while esqi'ein is "to be eating" not > simple 'to eat') > Though I think I could find instances where ESQEIN could easily be translated "to eat". This type of discussion regarding features like aspect and word order etc. is not confined to ancient languages of course. Linguists and grammarians disagree over the role of aspect in the English verbal system. I would agree that native speakers are not always the best people to systematically analyse their own language. Much interesting work in English corpus linguistics has been carried out by scholars from Norway who are 2nd language speakers. > While many language learning methodologies are helpful, and some extremely > efficient (like listening comprehension theory at the beginning and some > refined audio-lingual drilling in the middle, the only one guaranteed/known > to succeed is actual use of a language. > The only one guaranteed/known to succeed for modern languages--I agree. But for a solely epigraphic language? One only needs to consider the "success"??? of Esperanto (COD def: "an ARTIFICIAL universal language devised in 1887, based on roots common to the chief European languages" [emphasis mine]) to wonder whether we can assume and utilize the same language learning methodologies. I think there might be something valuable in using corpus-based learning techniques which allow the learner to "test" their theories about language and idioms through the interrogation of a representative corpus of the language. It would be nice to see the relevant portions of the TLG available in a form easily accessible and searchable for this task. > I'll let others answer this. My point in agreeing with Frank is that the > audience had to perceive the meaning based on sound and the sound did not > distinguish 'we have' from 'we should have'. Interestingly, both alef and B > corrected themselves here to ECOMEN 'we have'. > But not just on the sound of the word alone. LEGEI TIS "what about TO, TOO and TWO in English?" The context (including context of culture, context of situation and co-text) is the primary cue for the audience not the distinction (or rather the lack of it) between O and W. My point is simply that the subjunctive fits rather well at that point in the letter. Doesn't fit the theological context of post-reformation systematic theology--but what has that got to do with understanding Greek? TWO much in my experience. Greetings! -- Matthew Brook O'Donnell Centre for Advanced Theological Research Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Surrey Roehampton 80 Roehampton Lane London SW15 5SL tel. (0181) 392 3255 ext. 4162 fax. (0181) 392 3491 m.odonnell@roehampton.ac.uk --- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu