I've been snowed under by work commitments over the last few days, and I see that the discussion of R has already begun, but I wonder if I might revive this earlier thread for a moment.
Last week I was reading C M J Sicking's 'The Distribution of Aorist and Present Tense Stem Forms in Greek...' (Glotta, 69, 1991 pp14-43), which deals with matters similar to those that concern Rijksbaron (and indeed he refers to R); I was having a hard enough time getting (that's a conative use) my head around it, and was thinking, I'll have an even harder time reflecting on it in the light of R and reflecting on R in the light of Sicking, and then this suggestion was raised. So I think the project's interesting and worthwhile.
I'd like to underscore a couple of matters raised in the above discussion, particularly in a couple of posts by Eeli.
This would easily lead to pressing Koine into the same mold than Classical Greek. It would be easy to neglect counter-examples. It would be easy to loose different nuances. This requires highly competent project leaders.
A long time ago my Greek was slipping. That is, I was for a time a research assistant to the Horsley-Lee revision of MM that, sadly, has never come to fruition; I was writing (iterative use), on slips of paper, extracts from papyrological texts which illustrated NT vocabulary. Greg indicated to me that they found that the information provided by some voluntary slippers was inaccurate. Greg and John were "highly competent project leaders". I agree with Eeli that this project needs such, though it also raises the question as to whether the benefit is mainly seen in the process or the product of the project.
In a later post, Eeli commented,
Many people would have only little time for such a project, maybe a couple of hours per week, I guess. If it's too fast, people will drop off rather than read everything through and research and comment it.
I think this is right. In another discussion on the list last week, the importance of reading was stressed. The type of reading required for this project is analytical, and the time required considerable. I think it would be good, as Ken did with his project, to set out a time-line, and to give plenty of time to it, maybe with breaks so those interested can catch their breath to attend to other projects and commitments.
I'd also suggest a glossary of terms be made as part of the project, including, where necessary, discussion of different usages of the same term.
Another suggestion is that before the discussion kicks off in earnest time be given to allow interested B-Greekers to get hold of R.
Another thought is that B-Greek members number 850+. Of these, the great majority are silent. To my mind, it would be great if more members posted to the forum; but perhaps it would be worthwhile to ask members to indicate if they would be interested to follow such a project, and, beyond that, to ask which of us might have the time and interest to contribute to it, even if only to be more active in asking for clarification of the discussion. I'm aware, too, that B-Greek discussions are read by plenty who aren't members (that is evident from quotations from B-Greek discussions which can be seen elsewhere on the web), so the more helpful to ourselves, the more helpful the discussion would be to others as well, I'm sure.
Finally, is the assumption that R's view of the verb is fundamentally the correct one?
Alex Hopkins
Melbourne, Australia