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Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 11:44 am
by cwconrad
While this issue has arisen elsewhere, I don't think there's been a general discussion of the matter. I've just read a very nice paper expounding the history of conceptualization of verb-forms from ancient times from both a lexicological and pedagogical perspective. It's
S. M. Kraeger, ‘Whence and Whither Greek Verbal Lexicography and Pedagogy: A Diachronic Review', JGRChJ 3 (2014)
to be found in BAGL (Biblical and Greek Linguistics:
http://tinyurl.com/kpuwgkn
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 1:33 pm
by Eeli Kaikkonen
I too read it and liked it. Especially the history part was enlightening. But I wonder if his pedagogical thoughts are well based from the viewpoint of the linguistic SLA research. Those who discuss about SLA here say that grammmar (/morphology) should be taught as part of living language, real-life sentences and discourse. Kraeger says that verbs should be taught in the context of the whole verbal system, giving a table of grammatical labels/word forms as an illustration. I don't mean those two are incompatible or that SLA experts say they are incompatible but I somehow feel suspicious. Why?
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 1:42 pm
by cwconrad
Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:I too read it and liked it. Especially the history part was enlightening. But I wonder if his pedagogical thoughts are well based from the viewpoint of the linguistic SLA research. Those who discuss about SLA here say that grammmar (/morphology) should be taught as part of living language, real-life sentences and discourse. Kraeger says that verbs should be taught in the context of the whole verbal system, giving a table of grammatical labels/word forms as an illustration. I don't mean those two are incompatible or that SLA experts say they are incompatible but I somehow feel suspicious. Why?
Well, I think he rightly recognizes that for reference purposes the databases will more and more be digital. On the other hand, in terms of pedagogy my impression is that he's looking at retooling the grammar/translation methodology. The masterful aspect of this paper is, in my opinion, its insightful survey of the ways that philosophy, pedagogy, and taxonomy have interacted in shaping the ways in which the Greek verb has been understood over the centuries.
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 2:58 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Very helpful article. For teaching, I like this table from the paper, it's much easier to follow than the equivalent in most grammars:

- infinitive-bagl.png (80.17 KiB) Viewed 9570 times
But wouldn't you have to learn more than this for some verbs like φέρω (oops, φέρειν...), where you would need to know the future stem?
We could, of course,
teach more forms as needed for a particular verb ...

- infinitive-micheal.png (27.55 KiB) Viewed 9570 times
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 3:20 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:I too read it and liked it. Especially the history part was enlightening. But I wonder if his pedagogical thoughts are well based from the viewpoint of the linguistic SLA research. Those who discuss about SLA here say that grammmar (/morphology) should be taught as part of living language, real-life sentences and discourse. Kraeger says that verbs should be taught in the context of the whole verbal system, giving a table of grammatical labels/word forms as an illustration. I don't mean those two are incompatible or that SLA experts say they are incompatible but I somehow feel suspicious. Why?
I think this kind of information can be very useful for devising learning activities that do not depend on English or metalanguage.
Recently, I asked about prompts that could be used to identify tense for a verb without reverting to metalanguage. The infinitive forms could do that. A present infinitive [prompt] means I'm asking for a present tense form that fits the context in person and number:
Code: Select all
πῶς ἡμεῖς [ἀκούειν] ἕκαστος τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ ἡμῶν ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθημεν;
The user looks at the context and replaces [ἀκούειν], typing in the word ἀκούομεν.
I could also ask for an aorist using the aorist infinitive:
Or ask for an aorist passive:
That's a written approach, using Cloze, but it avoids using English or metalanguage, it provides active language learning activities purely in Greek.
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 3:43 pm
by cwconrad
The diagram lists Imperative forms as: Imperfective λύε; Stative λέλυον; Perfective λῦσον. I've never seen that form λέλυον and I wonder where it's come from. Earlier Greek has λέλυκε but Classical Attic uses the periphrastic λελυκὼς ἴσθι. Of course we know the perfect middle imperatives in -σο like ἔρρωσο, πεφίμωσο, but that form λέλυον is an enigma to me.
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 4:46 pm
by Stephen Carlson
cwconrad wrote:The diagram lists Imperative forms as: Imperfective λύε; Stative λέλυον; Perfective λῦσον. I've never seen that form λέλυον and I wonder where it's come from. Earlier Greek has λέλυκε but Classical Attic uses the periphrastic λελυκὼς ἴσθι. Of course we know the perfect middle imperatives in -σο like ἔρρωσο, πεφίμωσο, but that form λέλυον is an enigma to me.
For what it's worth, λέλυον is not attested anywhere in the twenty-three centuries of Greek on TLG..
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 5:45 pm
by Jonathan Robie
cwconrad wrote:I've never seen that form λέλυον and I wonder where it's come from.
The table's in the paper you referenced in the OP. I know nothing more.
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 7:17 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Pluses:
- I agree with lemmatizing based on the infinitive.
- Interesting discussion of grammatical history
Minuses:
- Bogus imperative form that Carl pointed out.
- Aspectual terminology (and perhaps theory?) too beholden to Porter.
- Fails to consider the benefits of first-person principal parts with augmented forms.
Re: Lemmatizing Greek Verbs
Posted: December 17th, 2014, 7:27 pm
by Jonathan Robie
If we lemmatize based on the infinitive, I assume we need the present and aorist infinitive for most verbs, and the perfect or future infinitive for a smaller number of weirder verbs? I also assume that some of the infinitive forms we need in order to demonstrate indicative forms that do occur may not actually occur as infinitives in the corpus. Should that bother me or not?