Re: Funk's 3-volume set

From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@WELLESLEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Aug 12 1999 - 11:31:03 EDT


Colleagues:

Several recent references to Funk's 3-vol textbook and to Blass-Debrunner-
trans. by Funk suggest the need for some clarificatiuon and correction.

(1) The textbook was basically self-published by Funk, when he formed
Scholar's Press. It was published years before the Press (i.e., Bob Funk)
moved to Chico.

(2) The revision of Blass-Debrunner is an entirely different matter.
Daryl Schmidt (yes, my student for seven years, finally being my Teaching
Fellow in Greek, writing his dissertation on Nominalization in Greek under
my supervision) was invited to head the project, and a small committee was
formed to aid in that project. Micheal Palmer is one of those committee
members.

(3) I cannot believe that Daryl would want to revise Funk's textbook. That
text was written entitrely under the spell of structuralism, well after it
had been demolished by Chomsky's work in T-G (Chomsky did his doctorate
under one of the greatest structuralists, Zellig Harris). Not only was
Funk's text based on structuralism, it was based largely on the once-
popular version of it as applied to English by C. C Fries.
        This does not detract from the very useful mass of material found
in the three volumes; like Goetschius' fine introductory text, it transcends
the theoretical linguistic base it argues for.

(4) Someone recently wrote on this List that Dan Wallace had been chose to
head the Blass-Debrunner revision. While anything is possible, this would
be a great surprise to me and to many. Who would have appointed him?
Has Daryl resigned? Micheal would know, I'm sure.

Edward Hobbs

--------------------------------------Perry Stepp wrote--------->>>>>>>>>>>

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl W. Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>

>I wish this text & reference book were still in print; it is the single
>freshest approach to Hellenistic Greek that I have ever seen to date.
>Perhaps even Clay B. might find something intelligent and useful in this
>approach to Greek morphology and syntax. Maybe we ought to encourage the
>appropriate sources to re-issue it; it was published, as I recall, by
>Scholars Press rather soon after SP was formed, back when they were in
>Chico, CA.

A few years ago (1996?), Daryl Schmidt (an old student of Ed Hobbs!) told me
that he was in charge of revising Funk's grammar for publication. He was
excited about the possibility of incorporating new developments in
linguistics, etc., into Funk's basic framework.

I haven't heard anything about the project since, though. Perhaps I'll drop
him a note and ask if it's still a go.

Perry L. Stepp

***********************************************
Pastor, DeSoto Christian Church
Ph.D. candidate (ABD), Baylor University
#1 Cowboy homer

***********************************************

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