I'm somewhat surprised and gratified to read this assessment of ATR -- I really am. I remember my first encounter with ATR as a freshman at Tulane in 1953, toward the end of my first year of Greek (and it was, in fact, NT Koine Greek) and reading its fascinating accounts of the emergence and development of forms and usage. I think it was morphology that fascinated me most; reading the Iliad in Benner's text got me deeper into the "archaeology" of Greek forms and usage. Within the next couple years my fascination shifted to the French scholars Chantraine and Meillet, as well as Carl Darling Buck on Greek dialects and comparative Greek & Latin grammar. The fact is, however, that I never thought of these books as representative of a Linguistic approach that was distinct from traditional Greek grammar.MAubrey wrote:That's a lot of questions. I'm not entirely sure that I can answer them in a way that's satisfactory for you.
The main reason for that is that I think the idea of treating "modern linguistics" as "Post-Saussurean" linguistics is thoroughly wrong-headed and nonsensical. I would trace the beginning of modern linguistic thought rather to Wilhelm von Humboldt...which means that I view ATR as falling within that period, i.e., ATR's grammar is precisely a modern linguistic contribution. Insights into language in general from the 19th century that were rejected or ignored in the 1930s through 50s are again receiving attention today..
Would you say of Smyth's grammar that it too represents a Linguistic approach? I'd always thought of it as the finest formulation of traditional grammar. And then there's Funk's BIGHG: when I first read this, I thought this is the way Greek ought to be taught, and I have yet to see any primer in Hellenistic Greek that has equalled or surpassed it in terms of what I want to see in a beginning grammar. And yet, I get the impression that nobody wants to use it in the classroom because it's outdated. Outdated? Then why the !*%&@! are using Mounce and some still cling to the wretched old Machen? Or is Wallace's GGBB deemed to be au courant with contemporary Linguistics? μὴ γένοιτο!
One of the things that surprised me when I read over ATR's account of voice and "deponency" is that he finds fault with much of the traditional terminology and even traditional explanations but doesn't suggest new terminology or a new framework; that's true of Smyth also, although I've found plenty in both ATR and Smyth to support the more recent emerging framework for understanding ancient Greek voice. Why is it so difficult to establish a satisfactory terminological convention for describing the elements and usages of ancient Greek? It does seem to me that Rijksbaron's terminology is much more satisfactory than much of what's found in traditional reference works.MAubrey wrote:The terminological nightmare that has been linguistics over the past 40 years is slowly improving. And I believe the best work, especially for Greek is still yet to come.
And that raises another question, perhaps one that belongs in a separate thread: what do you -- or other academic Linguists who work in ancient Greek -- consider the more useful reference works for use by learners and scholars in ancient Greek today; that's clearly a different topic from the matter of "What have you don't for me lately?" I guess it belongs to "Resources". There are certainly several items that are listed there, but I don't know that there's any assessment of a whole listing of what's currently available, although there's been much discussion of what is or is not still valuable in old lexical works such as Thayer or Sophocles. You've done some nice reviews on your blog, Mike, of the contributions of some classic Biblical Greek grammars; that's a start, perhaps.