Many of my long time readers will probably remember that I am a major fan of Timothy Shopen’s Language Typology and Syntactic Description:
Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Volume 1, Clause Structure
Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Volume 2, Complex Constructions
Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Volume 3, Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon
This 3 volume set is edited by Timothy Shopen and as of 2007 is in its second edition (first edition 1985).
I have often imagined that an analysis and survey of Hellenistic Greek following the themes & topics discussed in these books would make for a fantastic read. That is, if you really enjoy reading grammar – which I do.
The table of contents of this set reads almost like a Whose Who of descriptive linguistics for the past couple decades.
Volume 1, Clause Structure:
Chapter #1: Parts-of-speech systems by Paul Schachter & Timothy Shopen
Chapter #2: Word Order by Matthew S. Dryer
Chapter #3: The major functions of the noun phrase by Avery D. Andrews
Chapter #4: Clause types by Matthew S. Dryer
Chapter #5: Speech-act distinctions in grammar by Ekkehard Konig and Peter Siemund
Chapter #6: Passive in the world’s languages by Edward L. Keenan and Matthew S. Dryer
Chapter #7: A typology of information packaging in the clause by William A. Foley
Volume 2, Complex Constructions:
Chapter #1: Coordination by Martin Haspelmath
Chapter #2: Complementation by Michael Noonan
Chapter #3: Noun phrase structure by Matthew S. Dryer
Chapter #4: Relative clauses by Avery D. Andrews
Chapter #5: Adverbial clauses by Sandra A. Thompson, Robert E. Longacre and Shin Ja J. Hwang
Chapter #6: Discourse structure by Elise Karkkainen, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, and Marja-Liisa Helasvuo
Chapter #7: Sentences as combinations of clauses by Robert E. Longacre
Volume 3, Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon:
Chapter #1: Typological distinctions in word-formation by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Chapter #2: :Lexical typologies by Leonard Talmy
Chapter #3: Inflectional morphology by Balthasar Bickel and Johanna Nichols
Chapter #4: Gender and noun classes by Greville G. Corbett
Chapter #5: Aspect, tense, mood by Alan Timberlake
Chapter #6: Lexical nominalization by Bernard Comrie and Sandra A. Thompson
The average length of each chapter is roughly 70 pages — almost the size of an MA thesis and the whole set is 1436 pages total. And to be honest, if anyone was looking for a thesis or dissertation topic on Greek grammar (or the grammar of any language), they really just need to open up one of these volumes, pick a chapter and write on on that topic.
But this is the main question of this post:
If you were editing a three volume set of essays on Hellenistic Greek grammar subjects, what topics would you add? What topics would you remove? Who would write them?
Koine-Greek 