Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Confessions of a grammar junkie

I have to come clean. I am a grammar junkie. Yes, that's right, I read grammars for the fun of it. Right now I am reading by Stan Porter's Idioms of the Greek New Testament. No, you won't find it on the sidebar, I just read a few pages a day. I've been doing it for years, reading grammars that is. I can't help it. When I was in second year Greek, we were using Brooks & Winbery's Syntax of New Testament Greek. I read it for class, but secretly, I was reading Dana & Mantey with their idiosyncratic 8 case system. I used to take Smyth's Greek Grammar and read sections of it just for fun. For a while I was collecting Latin first year teaching grammars. I can't help it. I read LaSor's inductive Hebrew grammar just for the historical grammar notes.

Is there any hope for me? Is there a "Grammars Anonymous" chapter near me? "Hi, I'm James. I read dead language grammars. I need help!"

2 comments:

Dr. Joseph Ray Cathey said...

James,

If you find a support group let me know. I need to join as well. I collect Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Akkadian grammars. I love LaSor's grammar it is very indepth. Sadly it has been surpassed now but it still has quite a few good pages in it. I also like J. Wash Watts "A Survey of Syntax in the Hebrew Old Testament."

jps said...

I can't wait for us to publish Hoffner & Melchert's A Grammar of the Hittite Language (LANE 1), one more to read :) I am really trying to limit it to just Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but last night I picked up Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (mine is a good deal older...)and was looking through it again. I'm not a social grammar reader, I do it in my study. I'm a basket case.