Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

cwconrad
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by cwconrad »

Mike, I appreciate both your candor and your caution, and most of all, your readiness to attempt a response to this kind of question. Jonathan's compass of a century of achievements in greater understanding of "how Greek works" is indeed an arbitrary figure. What constitutes "progress" in scholarship is certainly not a matter of startling discoveries or paradigm changes, but jerks and starts and theories and gathering of evidence, and testing of theories, critical assessment of how theories and evidence match up, the gradual arrival of consensus, and so forth. Picking out what's salient is probably a matter of the beholder's angle of vision.
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..
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.

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!
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.
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.

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.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by David M. Miller »

Yes, of course, I meant Con(stantine) Campbell. It must have been Carl Conrad's force field that led to the mistake.
George F Somsel wrote:David Miller wrote:
Conrad Campbell says it can't:
Do you perhaps mean Constantine Campbell?
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by MAubrey »

Louis L Sorenson wrote:Would you consider pragmatics as a separate topic or include it under semantics? Perhaps you could define pramgatics and then give some suggestions.
The existence of pragmatics as an independent field separate from semantics was little more than a historical accident. I think John Taylor can say it better than I can:
“Over the past few decades pragmatics has emerged as an important subdiscipline of linguistics, taking its place alongside the more traditional components of linguistic study, such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. Given the basic assumptions of the generative paradigm, the emergence of pragmatics as an independent object of study was perhaps inevitable. If language constitutes an autonomous cognitive system, then, given the self-evidence fact that language is an instrument for conceptualizing and interacting with the world, the need arises for an interface that links these otherwise independent systems. Pragmatics functions as precisely such an interface. In rejecting the notion of an autonomous linguistic faculty, cognitive linguistics necessarily removes the need for pragmatics as a separate branch of study. All meaning is, in a sense, pragmatic, as it involves the conceptualizations of human being in a physical and social environment. (John Taylor, Linguistic Categorization, 133; my emphasis).
Another way of framing it would be to say that semantics and pragmatics are a continuum, there is no definable boundary where one begins and the other ends. They aren't separate fields. They're different ends of the one continuum. Campbell's definition (taken from Mari Olsen dissertation on tense and aspect) is simply wrong.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

MAubrey wrote:The existence of pragmatics as an independent field separate from semantics was little more than a historical accident. I think John Taylor can say it better than I can:
“Over the past few decades pragmatics has emerged as an important subdiscipline of linguistics, taking its place alongside the more traditional components of linguistic study, such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. Given the basic assumptions of the generative paradigm, the emergence of pragmatics as an independent object of study was perhaps inevitable. If language constitutes an autonomous cognitive system, then, given the self-evidence fact that language is an instrument for conceptualizing and interacting with the world, the need arises for an interface that links these otherwise independent systems. Pragmatics functions as precisely such an interface. In rejecting the notion of an autonomous linguistic faculty, cognitive linguistics necessarily removes the need for pragmatics as a separate branch of study. All meaning is, in a sense, pragmatic, as it involves the conceptualizations of human being in a physical and social environment. (John Taylor, Linguistic Categorization, 133; my emphasis).
Another way of framing it would be to say that semantics and pragmatics are a continuum, there is no definable boundary where one begins and the other ends. They aren't separate fields. They're different ends of the one continuum. Campbell's definition (taken from Mari Olsen dissertation on tense and aspect) is simply wrong.
That's rather strongly worded. I think you mean to say that the cognitive linguistics model does not treat pragmatics as distinct from semantics. Other models do. I doubt that you would claim that the cognitive linguistics model is not controversial - lots of cognitive scientists do believe that there is an innate language facility that is distinct from the rest of cognition (the "autonomous linguistic facility").

I think it's important to distinguish truth from models of truth. You seem to prefer the cognitive linguistics model.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by MAubrey »

See the next post for the layman's version...
Jonathan Robie wrote:That's rather strongly worded. I think you mean to say that the cognitive linguistics model does not treat pragmatics as distinct from semantics. Other models do. I doubt that you would claim that the cognitive linguistics model is not controversial - lots of cognitive scientists do believe that there is an innate language facility that is distinct from the rest of cognition (the "autonomous linguistic facility").
I certainly did not meant to say that. Cognitive scientists who hold the language faculty is independent from other cognitive systems view are a dying breed. There are plenty who accept the existence of an innate language faculty, sure. The real controversial claim is that this faculty exists independent of the motor and perceptual systems (touching, hearing, smelling, seeing, etc). But even beyond that, the kind of autonomy at issue here is even more narrowly defined: it also includes the claim that syntax exists independent of semantics.

Any model that rejects that form of linguistic autonomy, which is basically all of them except for Chomsky (= a minority--and even there, Minimalism is a move away from it), but accepts a distinction between semantics and pragmatics is an internally inconsistent framework. And that's just a nice way of saying "Wrong." There are only two or three model still in use that accept that kind linguistic autonomy; Campbell isn't using any of them. He makes that explicit in his publications.
Jonathan Robie wrote:I think it's important to distinguish truth from models of truth.
Agreed. But I'm not going to pretend that all models are created equal.
Jonathan Robie wrote:You seem to prefer the cognitive linguistics model.
Kind of. I prefer a variety of different models, depending on the research question at hand. But cognitive linguistics itself isn't a model. It's an umbrella term for a variety of models. I can pull similar quotes, if you'd like, from functionalist literature. And between Functionalism and Cognitive linguistics, we've covered the vast majority of linguistics. The "Semantics =/= Pragmatics" view only makes sense within a Chomskyan view of the language. And according to P. H. Matthew's book, Grammatical Theory in the United States: From Bloomfield to Chomsky, Chomsky only developed the idea because of a misinterpretation of Leonard Bloomfield's structuralism. So as I said, the division is little more than a historical accident.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by MAubrey »

I'm not making a theoretical claim. I'm making a historical claims--a claim about the history of the discipline.

Essentially the question is this: Is the existence of human language a result of nature or nurture.

The question has had three answers over the past 50 years:

Nature Only.
Both Nature and Nurture
Nurture Only.

The Semantic/Pragmatics distinction originally rose historically out of the Nature-Only camp. That's a historical and document fact. The Nature-Only camp was the dominant one in the 1960s, most of the 1970s and the 1980s. Pragmatics as an independent field distinct from semantics came into existence during that time. But the Nature-Only camp grew less popular in the late 80's and 90s. The vast majority of linguists today are in the "Both Nature and Nurture" camp. There are some who are Nurture-Only. They're a minority. Despite the fact that the idea of Pragmatics as distinct from Semantics only make sense from a Nature-Only perspective, many still accept it as doctrine simply because of historical reasons, not theoretical or empirical ones--i.e. since Pragmatics became a field during the time that Nature-Only was the popular option, it has been assumed to be distinct and separate. Most people who work in Pragmatics, however, are actually either "Both Nature and Nurture" people or "Nurture-Only" people. As a result, few who practice pragmatics recognize that ambiguous or gradient nature of Pragmatics and Semantics. For those in the field of pragmatics, this isn't controversial. It's a fairly broad consensus. The main places where it isn't accepted are also places where pragmatics is viewed as linguistically uninteresting anyway.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by cwconrad »

cwconrad wrote:
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.
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.

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.
The discussion of how pragmatics relates to syntax & grammar seems to me to have been a distraction from my question: From the viewpoint of academic Linguists seriously concerned with ancient Greek, what features in those grammars that are still consulted regularly by readers of ancient Greek text are most seriously flawed and in need of updating?

We continue to cite ATR, Smyth, and BDF/BDR, as well as GGBB. I continue to think that Funk's BIGHG is also worth consultation regarding standard Hellenistic usage. What are the areas or particular items within these that are most in need of updating? Related to this is a question that has already been discussed elsewhere in this forum: what items need to be covered in a good grammar of Hellenistic Greek? I know that Michael Aubrey has thought about this and I know too that Micheal Palmer has thought about it -- he was a member of the aborted committee working under the chairmanship of Darryl Schmidt and the auspices of Bob Funk to produce a new grammar of Hellenistic Greek. I'd like to hear what they and any others might want to say about this question.

Again the question: what are the greatest deficiencies in the grammars of ancient Greek, especially Hellenistic Greek, that are regularly consulted today?
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

cwconrad wrote:Again the question: what are the greatest deficiencies in the grammars of ancient Greek, especially Hellenistic Greek, that are regularly consulted today?
For my dissertation, I found that the traditional grammars were inadequate for word order and certain uses of the article.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by mwpalmer »

Carl Conrad wrote:
Again the question: what are the greatest deficiencies in the grammars of ancient Greek, especially Hellenistic Greek, that are regularly consulted today?
I concur with Stephen that the grammars we continue to cite do not provide adequate discussion of word order, though I would call it constituent order since it is not merely words, but also phrases that need clearer explanation. All of the major reference grammars that are still in wide use were written before a clear awareness of phrase structure became central in language study, so it is not surprising that they do not address this issue.

On the BDF revision committee we struggled with the extent to which discourse issues should be included. They are not covered at all in the grammars we are discussing here. Should they be a part of the next generation of Greek grammars? If so, to what extent?

At that time the work of Porter, Fanning, and Olsen on verbal aspect was extremely new, and the committee struggled to come to terms with their implications for the new grammar. Now that the dust has settled to some degree from that frenzied time, a new reference grammar would need to address the resulting understanding of aspect. The authors, contributors, and editors would need to debate the issue and come to a consensus around the perspective they wish to put forward. It would be inconceivable to write a grammar today without addressing this issue.

From my point of view, a new reference grammar would need to be developed along side a new lexicon, both informed by recent work in syntax and semantics. Some aspects of what was previously considered clause structure come from the syntactic and semantic properties of the particular verbs involved, and do not necessarily need to be treated as patterns in the grammar. They could be dealt with more efficiently in a lexicon that included the argument structure (sometimes called "θ structure" and sometimes "semantic Case-relations") of verbs, prepositions, and deverbal nouns. Doing this would not only lead to a much clearer understanding of what we find in the biblical texts, but would provide much better support for students learning Hellenistic Greek.
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Re: Linguists: What have you done for me lately?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Seems to me that we have smart people using different linguistic models here, they often disagree, and it's confusing for those of us who are not linguistics.

In this thread, compare these two statements by two smart linguist types:
MAubrey wrote:Any model that rejects that form of linguistic autonomy, which is basically all of them except for Chomsky (= a minority--and even there, Minimalism is a move away from it), but accepts a distinction between semantics and pragmatics is an internally inconsistent framework. And that's just a nice way of saying "Wrong." There are only two or three model still in use that accept that kind linguistic autonomy; Campbell isn't using any of them. He makes that explicit in his publications.
mwpalmer wrote:From my point of view, a new reference grammar would need to be developed along side a new lexicon, both informed by recent work in syntax and semantics. Some aspects of what was previously considered clause structure come from the syntactic and semantic properties of the particular verbs involved, and do not necessarily need to be treated as patterns in the grammar. They could be dealt with more efficiently in a lexicon that included the argument structure (sometimes called "θ structure" and sometimes "semantic Case-relations") of verbs, prepositions, and deverbal nouns. Doing this would not only lead to a much clearer understanding of what we find in the biblical texts, but would provide much better support for students learning Hellenistic Greek.
Mike Aubrey tells me that Chomsky is just plain wrong, models based on his work are not even to be treated with respect. Michael Palmer tells us Chomsky's government and binding theory is the right place to start.

Did I get this right?

I suppose part of my problem is that I would like linguists to teach me their insights, but I often find myself pulled into a dispute between very smart linguists instead, I have to first figure out what they are disagreeing about, then figure out what ramifications it has for the language as I know it, which requires me to learn multiple models and figure out what they are arguing about. At the end, I rarely feel like I've learned much about Greek.
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http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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