Simply, applause. At 07:54 AM 6/1/97 -0400, you wrote: >At 6:55 AM -0400 6/1/97, BTHURMAN@unca.edu wrote: >> >>i had noted that one cannot say anything true about language and i guess that >>includes me. still, as with others, some could learn some truth by considering >>the statements taken as a whole. >> >>from what i think i understand so far of carl's position, i'll bet if we had >>time to talk it out and did so, venn diagrams of our commonalities on said >>matters would be hugely overlapping with very little left completely peculiar >>to each. if carl thinks otherwise, i'd accede to what he thinks on it, because >>he's a practicing professional and most of my time is now taken with movement >>arts ministry and questions of how to relate the power of love to spiritual >>warfare -- i'm particularly concerned with affairs near the headwaters of the >>tigris - euphrates and in my own 'backyard' called 'pisgah territory'. > >Let me chime in here and add my support to what Bearded Bill has stated, >with regard to: > >(1) what is true about language: I posted a separate response to this >Dictum Guilielmis Barbati immediately after I read it: it was the quote of >the day! Certainly it ill befits one who claims a Socratic agnosticism (I >will declare my CONVICTIONS openly but I shan't confuse them with what I >KNOW); if I were (as I am not [love them counterfactuals]) so bold as to >offer an expansive scholium on said dictum, it might endeavor to relate >said Dictum to the Uncertainty Principle (about which I may speak as boldly >as any other who knows as little about it as do I); I might even formulate >said scholium on said dictum as a counterfactual: if it were not necessary >to employ language to do so, then it might be possible to say something >true about you language, but since, as any plain fool can see ... (at which >point I adopt also the Stilus Guilielmi Barbati and allow readers to draw >their own conclusion. > >(2) Relative stances of B.B. and myself on the ancient Greek voices: I know >less (and am much more uncertain) about Venn than about the Uncertainty >Principle. Nevertheless I rather think that B.B. and I are probably not as >far apart on this subject as it may appear on the surface. (I might even >bring Randy Leedy in on this, having spent a most enjoyable afternoon and >evening with him in both Carolinas {finding both mountains and valleys in >each of them, if the truth be told} and report that, although we found >weightier things to discuss than the Voices, we reached full and >unmitigated agreement on ELATTOUSQAI and its proper translation in >English--"decrease"). More specifically (and also more seriously): > (a) B.B. has done us a service in reminding us that we really ought >to inform ourselves of what the remains of the ancient grammatical >tradition have to say on these issues before we go off (as I so enjoy >doing) half-cocked on our own grammatical tangents. If I thought UNC-A had >accessible texts of same, I think I would try to get them and read through >them--I wonder if they even have a Pauly-Wissowa. I'm not sure just how >thoroughly any speaker of a language DOES understand his/her own language, >but I wish I did know what those Greek-speakers who wrote about Greek >grammar had to say about it, and the plain fact is that I don't; every bit >of what I "know" of Greek grammar I have gotten from sources in English, >German, and French. Honestly I feel just a little silly talking about Greek >grammar without knowing more about that Greek grammatical tradition. > (b) My "observations on ancient Greek voices" were just that: >observations--largely speculations on how they might be understood in a >somewhat more intelligible interrelationship. I really do think that >there's some complex relationship beyond my full understanding between >present-middles, athematic long-vowel (what I call "third") aorists and >second perfects--and I am thinking particularly of those verbs we tend to >think of as intransitive (but transitive/intransitive is another polarity >about which I have much less clarity than I once thought I had)--such verbs >as hISTAMAI/ESTHN/hESTAA. Nevertheless I honestly do think that the >phenomena of voice in the Greek verb may well be beyond any complete >rationalization. The other day I called attention to Smyth, ##800-821, pp. >218-224, s.v. "Peculiarities in the use of the Voice-Forms, etc." and >"Forms of One Voice in the Sense of Another." I believe that the lengthy >compendium of observations from A.T. Robertson cited by B.B. a couple days >ago pointed in much the same direction--which is to say, in ALL directions, >such that it would appear to require an Einstein to produce any "unified >field theory" of Greek voices. I don't think B.B. and I are all that far >apart, although we have differences of opinion on some matters. What I very >much want to see is a little less chaos in the understanding and >presentation of the Greek voice system than what the traditional >understanding and presentation seems to me to have offered. > >It appears that I have adopted much of B.B.'s "oracular" style in this >message. I have two excuses: (1) all of western NC has been under a >continuing flash-flood warning since 11 p.m. last night, and I'm now >contemplating the risks of "crossing over the bridge" to drive 15 miles to >church this morning; (2) It's hard to give "voice" to a complete sentence >when your tongue is firmly planted in the side of your mouth. > >Carl W. Conrad >Department of Classics/Washington University >One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018 >Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(704) 675-4243 >cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu >WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/ > > > > Randall McRoberts rmcrob@iquest.net or rcm@bioanalytical.com Check out my Biblical Studies website at http://www.iquest.net/~rmcrob "Apply yourself wholly to the text; apply the text wholly to yourself." - Johann Albrecht Bengel