Reconciling the Dynamics of Language with a Grammar Handbook: The Ongoing Pedalion Grammar Project
Toon Van Hal, Yannick Anné · Digital Scholarship in the Humanities · 2016
The contribution presents an ongoing research project that aims at designing a dynamic grammar of Ancient Greek. Relying on a Drupal-based solution, students will be trained to move between the language’s formal, semantic, and syntactic levels, so as to overcome the static character of a traditional grammar. A short description of the shortcomings of traditional Ancient Greek grammars is followed by a description of both the micro-structure and the macro-structure of the grammar. The final section focuses on the implementation of the tool in classes. Benefiting from recent developments and insights in the fields of technology, linguistics, and language didactics alike, the Greek grammar Pedalion (http://www.pedalion.org/—Ancient Greek πηδάλιον means ‘rudder’) seeks to offer a ‘contemporary’ instrument that is tailored to mastering and understanding ‘ancient’ languages.