Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

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Jacob Rhoden
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Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

Post by Jacob Rhoden »

I've seen older textbooks, and learnt from a book that seems to use the same methods, I just came across Decker's way of introducing verbs "Stems" + "Connective vowel" + "Personal ending". Its blowing my mind a little bit. It sounds interesting, is Decker the first person to approach things like this?
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jacob Rhoden wrote:is Decker the first person to approach things like this?
No, it's a pretty standard diachronic analysis.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
cwconrad
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Re: Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Jacob Rhoden wrote:is Decker the first person to approach things like this?
No, it's a pretty standard diachronic analysis.
To expand a bit, there are two different pedagogical philosophies here: "synchronic" and "diachronic". "Synchronic" pedagogy insists of teaching and learning the forms and usages of the NT Koine era without reference to how those forms and usages came to be as they are in that era or as they were changing to different forms and usages of an era yet to come. Learning paradigms that way depends heavily on memorization, but it concentrates on what speakers of the era actually spoke and heard.

"Diachronic" pedagogy, so far as paradigms of nouns, verbs, and adjectives is concerned, seeks to explain how the forms to be learned came to be that way in terms of the elements (prefixes, augments, roots, stems, infixes for mood, voice, etc, personal endings).

The "synchronic" pedagogy will tell you to learn the 3d plural form λύ-ουσι; the "diachronic pedagogy" will tell you to learn how λύ=ουσι derived from an earlier λυ-ο-ντι after the τ between ν and i became σ (νσι), and then the ν between ο and σ was lost but in compensation the ο lengthened to ου. "Synchronic" pedagogy requires understanding the phonetics of Greek and understanding the language's history.

My experience, for what it's worth, is that both approaches can be argued for and both appeal to different mentalities: some people want to learn what works and do it; others want to understand what they're doing.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

Post by Stephen Hughes »

In the example you've given, the rule for the choice between the epsilon and the omicron is that the epsilon is the base form, and that changes to an omicron before a(n historical) nasal - mu or nu. As far as whether there is a difference in meaning, there is not - they are allomorphemes.

In regard to Carl's point, do you think of "because" as a form of "cause"? Probably not. A speaker of a language doesn't need to be aware of the earlier period of the language to effectively use it. That being said, knowing Old and Middle English can really give us a feel for the language. So too knowing other dialects.

In English there is a difference between rhotic and non-rhotic dialects, and then vowels. In Greek it is between retaining the nu or losing it, and the vowels. In Koine the Attic vowels are closing up and the nu is lost. That is similar to the situation in Australian English - loss of the "r" as in British and New England English, and modification of the vowels. Retension of the nu in Doric is similar to the retention or final "r" in rhotic varieties of North American English. Nihil novi sub sole.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jacob Rhoden
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Re: Decker's alternate way of teaching endings.

Post by Jacob Rhoden »

Thanks guys, thats a lot of interesting new information I was not aware of. I'm glad I asked :D
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