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Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: July 16th, 2011, 8:43 am
by cwconrad
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I have several questions and suggestions regarding Funk's grammar.

1) I think it would be good to add glosses for the word lists and other Greek texts that do not have glosses. Smyth's "A Greek Grammar" includes glosses for everything. In a web format (vs. print) much more is able to be done without having the space restraints and cost of print volumes. Perhaps we could create a Funk-2 version of his grammar, including glosses to the Greek?.
I'm leery of this suggestion for two reasons. First and foremost, the copy right is held by Bob Funk's widow, Char Matejowski; she has given us permission to post our digitized copy at our web-site, butI don't think we have a right to alter or add substantively to the text of the edition that we have scanned. But in addition to that, if by "glosses" you mean English versions of the texts cited, that seems to me to foster the pedagogical notion that reading Greek is essentially formulation of an equivalent in a target language, and so to transform BIGHG into another of the many "analysis/translation" primers. Furthermore, I would note that the versions of constructions in Smyths grammar (which is a reference grammar, not a textbook -- BIGHG is essentially a textbook) are very,very carefully phrased: they are accurate English representations of the meaning of the Greek, but they are not literal translations. If we had a right to add such glosses to our digitized BIGHG, I think such glosses would have to be added very carefully -- but I really don't think we have the right to add them.
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I2) Funk in his introduction strongly suggests that his grammar is set up to be the basis for a more complete grammar of Koine Greek. Funk had a bigger vision of his "Hellenistic Grammar"
It had been my original intention to draw far more on texts outside the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers than has in fact been the case. If it proves possible to reduce a significant number of Greek sentences to a code that can be manipulated by a computer, it will be easily possible to work with a much larger body of data. In that case, the promise of the title (hellenistic Greek) will come to fulfillment; as it stands, it is more promise than achievement.There is, of course, a great risk in attempting a new organization of Greek grammar, based on a fresh collection of data. Those who are gracious enough to share the risk will hopefully make suggestions for improvement, note errors of all proportions, and contribute materially to the further editions which will hopefully follow.
He intended his content to be augmented, and adapted his numbering system accordingly....
The numbering system devised for this Grammar requires comment. It is basically a three digit system (§§001-999) with the possibility of infinite expansion: each major section has been assigned unused numbers, and indefinite subdivision is possible. In addition to the convenience in numbering the first edition, the system will permit subsequent editions to retain the same span of numbers for the same sections (e.g. Nominal Word Clusters will always be treated in §§680-779). Sections may be added or deleted without having to renumber the entire Grammar.
He also had a vision of his grammar going further....
In my own defense, I can only say that I finally decided it the better part of wisdom to publish the fruit of ten years of labor rather than wait upon additional years of work.
......
It had been my original intention to draw far more on texts outside the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers than has in fact been the case
.............
Those who are gracious enough to share the risk will hopefully make suggestions for improvement, note errors of all proportions, and contribute materially to the further editions which will hopefully follow.
All that is certainly true, but I think that the facts are more complicated. Funk had in mind something more than a "beginning and intermediate" textbook; he had hoped for a wholly-new Grammar of Hellenistic Greek that would improve upon and supplant BDF, since BDF is a relatively brief reference grammar compiled originally for users who were already fully familiar with classial Attic Greek. Funk had a committee working that was headed by Daryl Schmidt -- Micheal Palmer of our forum was one member of that group; it was, I think, a project of Funk's Westar Institute and would presumably have been published by Westar's Polebridge Press. Unfortunately the committee's work stalled and both Bob Funk and Daryl Schmidt are deceased. How far it ever got, I really don't know. It is an exceedingly lamentable blow to the scholarly study of not only the GNT and Christian literature but of Hellenistic literature as a literary corpus extending far beyond the confines of extant Biblical, Jewish, and Christian texts. Such an undertaking involves an immense expenditure of time and funds. The failure of that enterprise is tragic -- at least from the perspective of our forum members and from that of many others as well..
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I3) Funk also saw the use/need for an abridged Student's version of his grammar
Many promising suggestions have been made for a revised edition. While it was not possible to undertake a revision at this time, eventually a thoroughly revised and augmented edition will be issued, together with an abbreviated student edition. Meanwhile, the patrons of this grammar are invited to share further in its improvement.
I wonder if the B-Greek community could provide such a δῶρον?

.............
As indicated above, Funk's vision extended far beyond what was ever achieved in the last printed edition of BIGHG. I cannot possibly express my sorrow at the breakdown of the endeavor to compile a thorough new Hellenistic Greek Grammar to supplant BDF and perhaps serve as a reference grammar for Hellenistic Greek that we now find only in Smyth. But such a project lies, I fear, far beyond the combined resources of time, energy, and funds that devoted members of the B-Greek Forum could conceivably offer. On the other hand, revision, expansion, and improvement of the last printed edition of BIGHG is a project that B-Greekers might conceivably undertake. I think, however, that (a) we could do absolutely nothing along these lines without the clear consent of the copyright holder and should not even think of trying to do so, and (b) carrying out such a project would require not only the commitment of a sufficient number of volunteers to do the work, but it would also require a truly sound and competent committee of at least three persons to assure that any glosses and all expanded grammatical explanations are as clear and accurate as they can be. What we're talking about may not be, as Thucycides put it, a "classic" (κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί) but it would be something more than just "a prize essay for a one-time reading" (ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν).

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: July 25th, 2011, 5:39 pm
by Louis L Sorenson
I'm looking at Appendix I, section 900 (page 1). Funk has a character for sonant lamda (a lamda with a circle/ring beneath it) and syllabic Upsilon (an upsilon with a small curve (frown) below). I've tried using combining ring below (U+ 325) λ̥ and combining inverted breve below (U+032F) υ̥̥̯. Neither lines up correctly. Is there any better character mix to use for these characters?

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: July 25th, 2011, 5:53 pm
by Louis L Sorenson
The current state of editing on the Appendixes pretty much stops at page 45. Almost everything after that is raw OCR scans. The Subject Index (pp. 141-158) and Greek Index (pp. 159-184) are totally missing OCR scans.

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: July 26th, 2011, 1:03 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Ken did scans of these, including OCR much better than what we had earlier. I need to put them up.

I'm flying out to Toronto today, I'll try to find time to do this at a hotel.

Jonathan

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: July 26th, 2011, 2:01 pm
by Ken M. Penner
Louis L Sorenson wrote:I'm looking at Appendix I, section 900 (page 1). Funk has a character for sonant lamda (a lamda with a circle/ring beneath it) and syllabic Upsilon (an upsilon with a small curve (frown) below). I've tried using combining ring below (U+ 325) λ̥ and combining inverted breve below (U+032F) υ̥̥̯. Neither lines up correctly. Is there any better character mix to use for these characters?
I see the problem (on Firefox 5 on Windows 7). Surprisingly, on my iPhone, the combining ring below looked perfect. But in the quoted example above, you have two extraneous characters (the combining ring below again, U+0325) in addition to the inverted breve below, which on an upsilon would be υ̯.
The problem is the font being used. Fonts that handle these well:
  • Arial Unicode MS
  • Biblia LS
  • Calibri
  • Cambria
  • Charis SIL
  • DejaVu
  • Gentium
  • Lucida Sans Unicode
  • New Athena Unicode
Notable fonts that do not handle these well:
  • Arial
  • Courier New
  • Microsoft Sans Serif
  • Tahoma
  • Times New Roman
  • Ubuntu

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: December 7th, 2011, 8:31 pm
by Ross Purdy
Hi,

Where are we at now with this? I have pdf copies of the scans and uncorrected ocr txt files, htm and some corrected work too I think from the original project. That includes the appendices and indexes. I also have scans of the workbook if we can get permission to include that in the project. I might be able to figure out html and help with corrections.

In Christ,
Ross Purdy

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 7:56 pm
by James Ernest
I think you should check in with Polebridge Press unless you have an executed legal document in hand. At SBL I spoke with someone from Polebridge who said they were planning to reprint and knew nothing about your work. So I'm afraid there's some confusion or miscommunication somewhere.

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: December 9th, 2011, 8:47 am
by Jonathan Robie
Ross Purdy wrote:Where are we at now with this? I have pdf copies of the scans and uncorrected ocr txt files, htm and some corrected work too I think from the original project. That includes the appendices and indexes. I also have scans of the workbook if we can get permission to include that in the project. I might be able to figure out html and help with corrections.
Have you compared what you have to what we have online?

We have the pdf copies of the scans and the original files. The appendices need a lot of work, the main body of the book is set up well.

I've posted the workbook - see here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... book#p3762

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: December 9th, 2011, 8:52 am
by Jonathan Robie
James Ernest wrote:I think you should check in with Polebridge Press unless you have an executed legal document in hand. At SBL I spoke with someone from Polebridge who said they were planning to reprint and knew nothing about your work. So I'm afraid there's some confusion or miscommunication somewhere.
We have been in contact with Polebridge Press, and have received permission (via email) from Char Matejovsky, Lane McGaughy, and Larry Alexander.

James: if anyone has questions, I suggest they contact me, Char, Lane, or Larry.

Re: Funk BIGHG

Posted: December 10th, 2011, 1:02 am
by James Ernest
Sounds like you're all set. I was surprised when he told me Polebridge was planning a new edition because I thought that was what y'all were doing. In the normal course of things I never see the Polebridge folk--just kind of fell into their booth at SF.