The speaker list for BibleTech:2010 is up finally. I’ll be presenting once again, though this year’s topic is a change of directions from last years. Here’s my abstract:

In 2006 with the release of Logos 3, huge strides were made in the field of Greek language databases with the introduction of the Opentext.org Syntactically Analyzed New Testament for the first time searching the New Testament using syntactic features was possible. Opentext.org made it possible for more precise searches for constructions that would have previously been impossible to find. Likewise, with the recent release of Logos 4 and the work of Andi Wu & Randall Tan, the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament are positioned to change things once again with a more accurate and rigorous representation of the Grammar of Hellenistic Greek.

This discussion seeks to compare and contrast the two databases in their strengths and weaknesses with an eye toward the future of Greek syntax databases as visual representations of Greek grammar.

There’s more that can be said about this. Specifically, I’ll be looking at issues like WH-Questions, Topicalization, Discourse Pragmatics, Anaphora Resolution, Discontinuous Phrases, and other issues that are typically challenges for computational representations of grammar. I’ll be looking at each database from two perspectives:

1) The perspective of Greek Grammar itself: i.e. How accurately does this database what Greek does. This will deal chiefly with theory external issues.

2) The perspective of the linguistic framework that database is created in: i.e. How well does the given database function and organize itself within the linguistic framework used.

Since I wrote it, Accordance has announced their own syntax database. And a short e-mail exchange with them means that I might be able to has some discussion of their work as well, which is very exciting to me. We’ll see what happens with that as we come closer to March.

I’ll also look forward to meeting a few people I’ve only known on the internet, particularly, Chris Heard, David Lang, and James Tauber.