Koine morphology reference works

Peter Streitenberger
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

Dear Barry,
I don't know anything about the Publisher -the book itself is paperback and still in a good condition. It treats the complete morphology of the NT words (Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs etc.). The thing wich is clever is, that the authors reduce the inflections to simple phonetic laws or principles or short explanation how one gets from A to B. That safes some time for students to memorize the forms by themselfes. If you know the rules things get easier. The disadvantage is that is based on the words of Nestle-Aland edition, which I don't read, as I prefer the Byzantine editions, so some words or forms are explained which I don't find in my text or otherwise there are some missing. Then some other konjugations for some words are discussed, e.g. EPAN instead of EIPON (in Mat 2,5 and other passages), which I don't see right. But that is all of negative things. 99% of the book is good and interesting.
Yours
Peter
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:
Peter Streitenberger wrote:Why is the best Morphology on Koine Greek not yet named? It is: A Morphology of New Testament Greek: A Review and Reference Grammar. Brooks, University Press of America, 480 pages.
It's exhaustive, plausible and not too hard to read. I think one should have it. I recommend it.
Yours
Peter, Germany
We were waiting for you to name it, of course. But besides being exhaustive and plausible, what are its other merits? Could you give us a short review, if you have time? I must admit I'm always a little suspicious of anything published through University Press of America ( Rowman & Littlefield), which is a well known vehicle for what is essentially self-publication. They appear to have nothing in the way of editorial standards and allow anything from soup to nuts (and mostly nuts).
Barry, this is no rinky-dink effort. The authors are James Brooks and Carlton Winbery. They also have an intermediate syntax that was popular in the 80s and 90s. Carlton used to be a member of B-Greek and taught at Louisiana College.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Barry, this is no rinky-dink effort. The authors are James Brooks and Carlton Winbery. They also have an intermediate syntax that was popular in the 80s and 90s. Carlton used to be a member of B-Greek and taught at Louisiana College.
Carlton, of course, was also co-chair of the B-Greek mailing list with Carl for many, many years before we switched over to the forum. Very impressive guy.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Barry, this is no rinky-dink effort. The authors are James Brooks and Carlton Winbery. They also have an intermediate syntax that was popular in the 80s and 90s. Carlton used to be a member of B-Greek and taught at Louisiana College.
Carlton, of course, was also co-chair of the B-Greek mailing list with Carl for many, many years before we switched over to the forum. Very impressive guy.
If Peter had named the authors, that would have been good... However, that doesn't change the fact that University Press of America does not have the best reputation. But this is also proof that not everything they publish is in the perish part of publish or perish. :lol:
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Peter Streitenberger wrote:Dear Barry,
I don't know anything about the Publisher -the book itself is paperback and still in a good condition. It treats the complete morphology of the NT words (Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs etc.). The thing wich is clever is, that the authors reduce the inflections to simple phonetic laws or principles or short explanation how one gets from A to B. That safes some time for students to memorize the forms by themselfes. If you know the rules things get easier. The disadvantage is that is based on the words of Nestle-Aland edition, which I don't read, as I prefer the Byzantine editions, so some words or forms are explained which I don't find in my text or otherwise there are some missing. Then some other konjugations for some words are discussed, e.g. EPAN instead of EIPON (in Mat 2,5 and other passages), which I don't see right. But that is all of negative things. 99% of the book is good and interesting.
Yours
Peter
I would think that the same morphological rules would pertain whether it's NA or the Byzantine text form. The use of 1st aorist endings on 2nd aorist stems is a regular feature of Koine, and so should be discussed. But this is a much more helpful review, and finding out who the authors were was also helpful.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Peter Streitenberger
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

Dear Barry,

yes, agreed, my point just was that I'd consider the EIPA readings in the NT as typical for just certain MSS, which I don't trust as of good quality. So that is a TC issue and my problem with the morphology book was that the authors stated these froms as being original. That was everything I was complaining about.

Maybe we can agree in this issue with the quote of Dionysius: "εἶπον καὶ εἶπα· ἀμφότερα παρὰ Ἀττικοῖς, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ πρότερον"

Yours
Peter
TimNelson
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by TimNelson »

OK, so here's the compiled list:

- Smyth
- Moulton & Howard's Grammar of New Testament Greek Vol. 2: Accidence and Word Formation
- Gerhard Mussies The Morphology of Koine Greek
- Francis Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods Vol 2: Morphology (Milan: Instituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica, 1976).
- Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek
- Ward Powers' Learn To Read New Testament Greek
- Funk's Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek.
- Randall Buth A Greek Morphology: Verbs and Nouns for Koine Greek
- Brooks and Winbery, A Morphology of New Testament Greek: A Review and Reference Grammar, University Press of America, 480 pages.

OK, so now that we have that, I have a question. Which of these cover Derivational Morphology (Word Formation)? I have access to Smyth, MHT, Mounce, and Powers. Smyth and MHT cover derivational morphology, Mounce doesn't, and I don't think Powers does either. How about the others?
Last edited by Stephen Carlson on October 21st, 2014, 2:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed typo per poster.
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Tim Nelson
B. Sc. (Computer Science), M. Div. Looking for work (in computing or language-related jobs).
Peter Streitenberger
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

I prefer Brooks and Winbery over the other books, conceise, exhausting and easy to understand.
Peter
cwconrad
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Re: Koine morphology reference works

Post by cwconrad »

wayland wrote:OK, so here's the compiled list:

- Smyth
- Moulton & Howard's Grammar of New Testament Greek Vol. 2: Accidence and Word Formation
- Gerhard Mussies The Morphology of Koine Greek
- Francis Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods Vol 2: Morphology (Milan: Instituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica, 1976).
- Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek
- Ward Powers' Learn To Read New Testament Greek
- Funk's Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek.
- Randall Buth A Greek Morphology: Verbs and Nouns for Koine Greek
- Brooks and Winbery, A Morphology of New Testament Greek: A Review and Reference Grammar, University Press of America, 480 pages.

OK, so now that we have that, I have a question. Which of these cover Derivational Morphology (Word Formation)? I have access to Smyth, MHT, Mounce, and Powers. Smyth and MHT cover derivational morphology, Mounce doesn't, and I don't think Powers does either. How about the others?
Smyth does: Part III. Formation of Words, §§822ff.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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