smyth and the basics

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Sofronios
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smyth and the basics

Post by Sofronios »

I hope what I write here is worthy enough to be posted here
well, its been a while I try to make sense this simple yet nerve-consuming sentence (again from JACT RG page 136 last sentence)
ὄζουσι χαὗται πρεσβέων εἰς τὰς πόλεις ὀξύτατα
weirdly enough for me, with JACT hints, I could understand this sentence but only the second word χαὗται.
this is strange because if it is a new vocab JACT will give the help or hints, but because it is absent so I think it is either JACT regard it as an old vocab that one should know (but I really dont), or it is a typo. then I decided it is just a typo, but when I looked up into the first ed which is not differ too much, the very word is there from the start.. so by Apollo, It really disturbs me.
then I was thinking where I could consult a resource that can answer this problem, (for there is no teacher around and I bet those good fellow who made JACT design it for a teaching course not for self study from the start).. so it happened when I try to consult Smyth. I found the answer on this problem about crasis (on page 22) that και will drop αι and change to χ with rough breathing. so the form is actually και + ἇυται. and to think of it, a novice whose ears still wet is utilizing this tome respected by those of high greek-literacy, that I never think before.

so what I want to make a point is, for fellow beginner who self-taught, to consult smyth even at this stage, when we seems a blocked way ahead. even though It's reference content is meant for those who have good grip on the basics, but I think the presentation is easy enough to follow even though we are not expected to digest all presented at the same time. for it is what a reference is for, to be consulted not to be memorized in one sitting..
so what do you ppl think? do you have same experience or advice?
ὁ δὲ εἶπε· πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην, ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσῃ με;
Qui ait : Et quomodo possum, si non aliquis ostenderit mihi ?

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

so what I want to make a point is, for fellow beginner who self-taught, to consult smyth even at this stage,
IMHO it is never too early to start using reference grammars. Smyth is one of the best in English. It takes a while to get used to him but it is worth the effort.
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by daivid »

I have yet to ever have had a question answered by Smyth. Sometimes when I have posted a question the answerer having fully explained my problem to me has given me a reference to Smyth. Only then can I find and understand the answer because I by then already know it.
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by a reader of Homer »

I agree with daivid. Trying to use a grammar book to answer a specific question in the text is frustratingly impossible. If you knew where to look in the grammar book to answer the question, chances are you would have already known the answer. I study Monro separately from reading the text.

Beginning readers need good notes on basic grammar for guidance, few such notes on texts exist.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

daivid wrote:I have yet to ever have had a question answered by Smyth. Sometimes when I have posted a question the answerer having fully explained my problem to me has given me a reference to Smyth. Only then can I find and understand the answer because I by then already know it.
David,

It's the meta-language problem I suspect. I find answers in Smyth faster than any other grammar. The index is excellent but you do need to know the meta-language and the structure of the traditional grammar system.

I agree that notes on texts like G. Steadman's are very helpful but they also tend to use the meta-language. I suppose there are people who attempt to teach without meta-language but they end up creating a new meta-language in the process. My first textbook on NT Greek was E.V. N. Goetchius Language of the NT, he avoided a lot of the traditional metalanguage by demonstration structural patterns in syntax: This is how you would say ... in Greek ..., here are three other ways you could say the same thing. This is why you might choose to say it this way and not that way.
Last edited by C. S. Bartholomew on Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by bedwere »

This reminds of my frustration many years ago, when I was learning English and I could not find "gonna" in the dictionary! :D

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by daivid »

C. S. Bartholomew wrote:
It's the meta-language problem I suspect. I find answers in Smyth faster than any other grammar. The index is excellent but you do need to know the meta-language and the structure of the traditional grammar system.

I agree that notes on texts like G. Steadman's are very helpful but they also tend to use the meta-language. I suppose there are people who attempt to teach without meta-language but they end up creating a new meta-language in the process. My first textbook on NT Greek was E.V. N. Goetchius Language of the NT, he avoided a lot of the traditional metalanguage by demonstration structural patterns in syntax: This is how you would say ... in Greek ..., here are three other ways you could say the same thing. This is why you might choose to say it this way and not that way.
It is not really the meta language that is the problem. Commentaries do tend to use meta-language shorthand which isn't always at once clear to me. In situations like that Smyth can be helpful though even then my first resort is to one of my textbooks. What was talking about is when I get stuck on something which the commentary considers to be too easy for a comment.

Indeed today reading Herodotus Sheets referred to ingressive aorists which is a term I had never heard. Sheets gave a Smyth section and it turn out to a perfective verb that designates not a completed action but the initiation of a continuing action - a concept I know from Serbo-Croat.
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

daivid wrote: What was talking about is when I get stuck on something which the commentary considers to be too easy for a comment.
Anyone who is learning on their own will have had that experience. I wouldn't attempt to estimate how many times I have experienced that scenario but it would be a number with a row of zeros after it.
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Alexx »

"then I was thinking where I could consult a resource that can answer this problem, (for there is no teacher around and I bet those good fellow who made JACT design it for a teaching course not for self study from the start).."

The first part of the J.A.C.T Reading Greek Course consists of three books: Text and Vocabulary; Grammar and Exercises; and An Independent Study Guide. The last named of these books, as the title suggests, is for students learning without the benefit of a tutor. It contains translations of and a grammatical and literary commentary on the passages contained within the Text and Vocabulary volume, plus the answers to the Exercises and Test Exercises contained within Grammar and Exercises. There is no need to look outside of these three books for solutions to any of the problems encountered within them.

The J.A.C.T. team also produce an excellent double CD - Reading Greek - which has readings of a substantial number of the passages in the Text and Vocabulary volume. This for me proved invaluable in developing the correct pronunciation of the texts.

Best wishes in your studies.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Sofronios »

Alexx wrote: The first part of the J.A.C.T Reading Greek Course consists of three books: Text and Vocabulary; Grammar and Exercises; and An Independent Study Guide. The last named of these books, as the title suggests, is for students learning without the benefit of a tutor. It contains translations of and a grammatical and literary commentary on the passages contained within the Text and Vocabulary volume, plus the answers to the Exercises and Test Exercises contained within Grammar and Exercises. There is no need to look outside of these three books for solutions to any of the problems encountered within them.

The J.A.C.T. team also produce an excellent double CD - Reading Greek - which has readings of a substantial number of the passages in the Text and Vocabulary volume. This for me proved invaluable in developing the correct pronunciation of the texts.

Best wishes in your studies.
yeah the independent study guide extremely helpful.. I cannot imagine how my greek will proceed without it. but surely, the explanations geared toward the translation and exercise. there is still some piece of grammar that is unexplained. well nobody perfect though. all people have a different learning and teaching experience :o
and for the CD pardon me to say, I am still inclined toward the modern greek pronounciation, because it is the first living greek I hear(at my local parish-church) and I know maybe this pronounciation is not the best.. but well I cant help it :lol:
ὁ δὲ εἶπε· πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην, ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσῃ με;
Qui ait : Et quomodo possum, si non aliquis ostenderit mihi ?

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Sofronios »

bedwere wrote:This reminds of my frustration many years ago, when I was learning English and I could not find "gonna" in the dictionary! :D
and how I met this nice and joyful african-american in a cafe, and I asked whether he wanted to add a sugar to his coffe and he replied "I aint goin' to add more, to sweet, I aint goin' to add more" and it takes me a minute to grasp his meaning.. :D
ὁ δὲ εἶπε· πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην, ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσῃ με;
Qui ait : Et quomodo possum, si non aliquis ostenderit mihi ?

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by seneca2008 »

yeah the independent study guide extremely helpful.
I looked through my copy of the independent study guide and it gives no help on the crasis involved here.

Crasis is something I kept forgetting about when I started to learn ancient Greek. Making mistakes as they say is an important part of learning and I am glad you found the answer in the ever helpful (at least to me) Smyth. Much slimmer but also helpful is Morwood's Oxford Grammar.

I hope that you will now look at the breathings on any unfamiliar words and note that if there is a breathing other than at the beginning of the word its probably crasis. I say probably because the more Greek I read the more diverse it seems to get.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by mwh »

I think that’s correct. Something that starts with a consonant and has a breathing on the immediately following vowel or diphthong (the vowel will be long) will indicate two merged words, i.e. crasis.

It happens most often with καί (e.g. καὶ ἐκεῖνος > κἀκεῖνος, καὶ οὗτος > χοὗτος) and the article (e.g. τὰ ἐμά > τἀμά)
(Pedants insist that it’s not a breathing but a “coronis,” but it makes no difference.)

It doesn’t have to start with a consonant. ἁνήρ (rough breathing, long alpha) represents ὁ ἀνήρ (short alpha), for instance.

By editorial convention (nothing more), crasis is effected in verse, but not in prose. In one of the speeches that Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles, he says
και εγω μεν ο αυτος ειμι και ουκ εξισταμαι, “And I am the same and do not shift.”
This is actually an iambic trimeter with three crases: κἀγὼ μὲν αὑτός εἰμι κοὐκ ἐξίσταμαι.
Was Pericles quoting from a tragedy?

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Alexx »

"I looked through my copy of the independent study guide and it gives no help on the crasis involved here."

In fairness to the J.A.C.T., I have to say that the principle of crasis is explained on p88, no.100 of the Grammar and Exercises volume.
I feel a loyalty to this course because it's the one I used.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by seneca2008 »

I feel a loyalty to this course because it's the one I used.
I too used it and I think its a great resource. Some posters mentioned that there may be additional help in the independent study guide so I thought I would check.

You are right that crasis is mentioned in the grammar but some way before this example comes up. The specific case of rough breathing is not however explicitly mentioned.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Hylander »

I have yet to ever have had a question answered by Smyth.
Personally, I find the on-line version of Smyth (as well as that of Allen & Greenough on the Latin side) nearly impossible to use. It's much easier to find the information you're looking for in the hard copy. When I respond to a question with a cite to Smyth, I generally use the hard copy to find the right place and then post a link to the on-line version.

LSJ is another resource that you should try to take advantage of in desperate moments. Often it will give a helpful gloss on a specific passage that's troubling you. It will also give you a sense of how incomplete our grasp on ancient Greek really is. The on-line version isn't easy to use, but it's not as difficult as on-line Smyth.

The intermediate Liddell & Scott (based on an older edition of the big L&S, before Jones and MacKenzie came into the picture) also gives many specific glosses (with citations just to authors, not to exact passages), and can be just as useful. Hard copies, new or used, are available at reasonable prices.

I'm eagerly awaiting this, which promises an appendix on "Errors in Smyth's Grammar":

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/su ... reek-prose
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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by seneca2008 »

LSJ is another resource that you should try to take advantage of in desperate moments.
In general I agree although I have lost count of the number of times when reading a commentary I read that LSJ is wrong. If one has time ones needs to consult as many sources as possible and make up ones own mind. hardly helpful advice for a beginner I know. I was motivated to get the Brill dictionary precisely because LSJ is rather outdated and of course even some of the english meanings given have changed in meaning.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by jeidsath »

Hylander wrote:I'm eagerly awaiting this, which promises an appendix on "Errors in Smyth's Grammar":

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/su ... reek-prose
I've just pre-ordered it. I think that I have seen Eleanor Dickey's name pop up on a number of somewhat eclectic but very useful publications.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Paul Derouda »

seneca2008 wrote:In general I agree although I have lost count of the number of times when reading a commentary I read that LSJ is wrong. If one has time ones needs to consult as many sources as possible and make up ones own mind. hardly helpful advice for a beginner I know. I was motivated to get the Brill dictionary precisely because LSJ is rather outdated and of course even some of the english meanings given have changed in meaning.
There's always bound to be disagreement in scholarly debates, and given it's age LSJ has lasted the test of time remarkably well. It's quite possible that LSJ will still be consulted when no one uses Brill.

Brill's Etymological Dictionary of Greek is a case in point. It's supposed to replace Chantraine's chef d'oeuvre from the 70's. I have checked it only once, and it failed miserably (see this thread: http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... 36&t=60856). Perhaps it might do better if I tried another time, but I haven't bothered...

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by Timothée »

Paul Derouda wrote:Brill's Etymological Dictionary of Greek is a case in point. It's supposed to replace Chantraine's chef d'oeuvre from the 70's.
I know you have a penchant for Chantraine (and rightly so), but don't forget the slightly earlier Frisk, Paul. Beekes is to large extent an "updated" version of Frisk. I use inverted commas as one may disagree with some of these "updates", most notoriously those dreadful laryngeals. I like Beekes's Pre-Greek approaches (now also in a self-standing monograph), though sometimes it may be difficult to say much conclusively.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by seneca2008 »

It's quite possible that LSJ will still be consulted when no one uses Brill.
I am sure that in the future there will be a place for both. The advantage the Brill has is that in its on line form at least it will be much easier to update and correct. I wonder whether we should call the Brill dictionary "Montanari"?
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by mwh »

I fancy it’s only because LSJ is so very authoritative that commentators voice disagreement with it when they think it’s wrong.

The Brill dictionary is a translation of the Italian one, which is fundamentally based on LSJ (practically to the point of plagiarism) and makes no substantive advance on LSJ’s lexicographical organization. We shouldn’t be taken in by the hype and puffery. Formatting does make it slightly easier to navigate, and it has some other advantages too, but LSJ was compiled by people who really knew Greek, in a way that none of the people involved in the ripoff do. Perhaps I shouldn’t call it a ripoff, but I do feel it should acknowledge its indebtness to LSJ. It follows a well-known formula: conceal its origin, do a bit of fiddling with it, and flog it as a wholly new and superior product. And while some of LSJ’s English is rather old-fashioned, LSJ can’t fairly be called outdated, when the revised supplement (cross-referenced in the main Lexicon) was issued in 1996. Ancient Greek has not stood still over the last twenty years, but it can’t be said to have changed a whole lot.

Forgive what’s turned out to be a bit of a rant. I hope you’ll keep us informed of your experience with it, seneca2008. It will be interesting to see how it holds up as it gets more use.

As Hylander hints, for most people the Intermediate L&S is perfectly adequate for most purposes, and much more straightforward.

PS I wrote the above a day or two ago but didn’t post it. Montanari would be delighted if the English translation were dubbed “Montanari.” It was something of a vanity project. But I’m not denying its value.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by seneca2008 »

The Brill dictionary is a translation of the Italian one
If you look at my post on the Brill dictionary thread you will see that the preface explicitly states that this is not so.

All dictionaries of course take account of their predecessors. LSJ was based on Passow which in turn was based on Schneider.

Perhaps you might find the following extract from the preface interesting:
An enormous effort would be required for the revising of a dictionary like the LSJ. Although supplemented, to general acclaim, by P.G.W. Glare in 1996, the current LSJ has not undergone a major revision since the 9th edition by Jones and McKenzie in 1940. That revision took 15 years. And, needless to say, the funding as well as the time necessary for compiling a new dictionary for a language as complex as ancient Greek both in its breadth and in its chronological span is daunting. An instructive comparandum is the monumental Oxford Latin Dictionary, compiled without basing itself on any previous work. That project was originally planned for publication in twelve years but in fact took from 1933 to 1982 (granted, the project was prolonged when World War II interrupted the work for a number of years), with the first set of 256 pages published in 1968 and an addition published every other year until the entire volume was completed in 1982, almost half a century after the ambitious work was begun. Also, though its scope is more monumental and vast even compared to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, another comparandum is the Diccionario Griego-Español, overseen by Francisco Rodríguez Adrados since 1980. It now awaits its eighth volume, which will comprise the latter half of the letter Epsilon. In the absence of a revision of the main body of LSJ, especially in the light of the recent advances made in scholarship on the ancient Greek world, another Greek-English lexicon that incorporates such new knowledge is surely a most welcome addition.
This Greek-English project is presented as an enhancement of lexicog- raphy, which is an intuitive procedure, not an exact science - a fact that sometimes eludes even the most advanced students of Greek. As John Chadwick points out in the introduction to his pathfinding Lexicographica Graeca: Contributions to the lexicography of Ancient Greek (1995), modern lexicographers have tended to treat “as a positive fact” the opinions of an- cient lexicographers, which, as useful and necessary as they are, must be considered merely a starting point for understanding the semantics of a given lemma, that is, of any word to be defined. This Greek-English dictio- nary, following the lead of Franco Montanari, presents a critical approach to lexicography in and of itself. But of course even a critical approach must by necessity present interpretations, however valid, of the existing evi- dence for the semantics of any given lemma. And interpretations are not simply a matter of “positive fact.” The editors of this new lexicon, as pre- sented in English, are keenly aware of this reality as they aim to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the full range of surviving ancient Greek. The editing of this volume has been for us a task that was both exhilarating and humbling for these reasons. Our objective was an accurate elucidation of each Greek lemma in English, and, accordingly, it is to be emphasized that the lexicon is not a translation of the Italian definitions in and of themselves. Also, as noted in Franco Montanari’s preface, the English version includes a not insignificant number of new lemmata. Incorporated are the corrections stemming from the Italian third edition, which came out in May 2013. While our edition also incorporates other corrections discovered during the translating and editing, and although we have double-checked citations when questions arose, we have not done a systematic revision of the definitions or citations of the Italian third edition. Finally, we must note that the first edition of any lexicon, and certainly one originally based on another language, is bound to contain not only some infelicities in idiom and clarity but also outright errors. Still, we have tried our best to render 132,884 lemmata into as clear and idiomatic modern American English as possible in the span of four years.
In addition to the updated language of our definitions, the strengths of this volume include the incorporation of new evidence, especially from epigraphical sources and papyri. Our methodology relies on the application of historical linguistics to the study of new lemmata, and this reliance at times takes us even beyond the third edition of the Italian version. In continuing to account for ever newer lemmata, we follow the aim of Franco Montanari in seeking to include later Greek, even from patristic sources (for which the users of LSJ, for example, had to consult the dictionary of Lampe). There is also a representative set of lemmata for names of persons and places. In general, our hope is that this lexicon will be a useful tool for specialists in ancient Greek as well as for students at all levels.
As far as I am concerned dictionaries in any language are points of departure not ends in themselves.

I agree that the "Middle Liddell" is an excellent first port of call. A larger dictionary, however, is very useful for example when reading Tragedy as one can see parallel uses.

Everybody has preferences and I am sure when Liddle was first published there were similar exchanges!
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: smyth and the basics

Post by mwh »

Thanks seneca2008. I had read what you wrote about it not being a translation, but Brill’s own preview (http://www.brill.com/sites/default/file ... review.pdf) states right up front that “The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek is the English translation of Franco Montanari’s Vocabolario della Lingua Greca.” I see the actual preface you quote says (indeed, "emphasizes") that “the lexicon is not a translation of the Italian definitions in and of themselves” (but also that “we have not done a systematic revision of the definitions”). It seems the editors of the American version have (a) translated the Italian dictionary but (b) when it comes to the actual “definitions” have not (or not always) directly translated the Italian. Evidently they (or their army of assistants) used LSJ, just as Montanari (or his army of assistants) did.

I simply wanted to issue a general caution, not launch an attack. It has undeniable advantages over LSJ, as I've said. I do sometimes make use of the Italian dictionary, as I said on the Brill thread (http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... =2&t=62613), but only to check if it has something not in LSJ (which it rarely does, apart from patristic Greek taken over from Lampe). I’ve never done a systematic comparison with LSJ, but as I look now at the Brill ἀγγέλλω entry (copied by jeidsath at http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... 13#p178578) two things stand out:
1. The initial info on forms is set out much more clearly, but gives much less detail.
2. The basic organization of the entry is the same, and the references are taken over lock stock and barrel; and such changes as have been made are shoddy and amateurish. In fact the more I examine it the less satisfactory it seems.

But others may have a more favorable impression of it.

—This discussion would be better on the Brill thread, don’t you think? But I’ve had my say.

Michael

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