The AGNT Appendix (the three forms thereof)
As we developed the AGNT parsing/tagging for the entire New Testament, it was apparent that some of the tags were not all that transparent. Whereas N-NM-S as Noun, Nominative, Masculine, Singular is rather straightforward, whatever is the tag VIFD--2S^VMPA--2S supposed to mean?
The result of answering that question (and a great many others) for our original printed AGNT (Baker, 1981) was a fifty-eight page appendix called The Grammatical Analysis. In it we tried to explain everything that a reader might encounter in the pages of AGNT that was not readily apparent. This wasn’t an introduction to Koine Greek grammar as such, but rather an explanation of how we analyzed the text of the Greek New Testament from our understanding as linguists and translators. Of course, it is safe to say that most users do not read the appendix, for whoever first reads the instructions on some new device with minimal assembly requirements? We rather refer to the instructions (in our case, the appendix) when all else fails. So we went out of our way to make the outlining of the AGNT appendix clear and straightforward, so that a user could find the proffered explanation for his given uncertainty.
The original AGNT appendix is here offered as in largely its initial presentation, howbeit with corrections and revisions as thought necessary. It is called the Classic AGNT appendix. It is the first of three AGNT appendixes, all essentially the same, but with intentional differences, as will soon become clear.
After AGNT had been in circulation for about a decade, we began to offer an electronic AGNT in the 1990s. We had gathered enough evaluation of AGNT to realize that some revision was called for. In particular, we simplified the tagging scheme of the basic AGNT morphological analysis at that time. The result was a product sufficiently different such that a revision of the appendix was appropriate. Ulrik Sandborg-Petersen did most of that work for us. The result was the revised AGNT appendix, as presented here. Since the database as electronic was now easily altered, we have kept updating it right up to the present moment. Samuel Pflederer was recently responsible for another major fine-tuning of the same, especially to make our arcane explanations a bit more comprehensible.
We have kept the original AGNT in print (moving it from Baker to Trafford Publishing). That original typesetting contains the pre-simplified tagging system and for that reason alone it make sense to keep the original appendix available. But for an additional reason as well: in our simplification there was a certain loss of information that potentially might be of interest to certain users. Thus retaining the original serves a good purpose. In contrast, the revised AGNT appendix is the appropriate form for all electronic expressions of AGNT to date. Thus both versions, original and revised, have a role to play.
In the new millennium we entertained a startling thought, namely, that the traditional understanding of voice in Greek—in use for hundreds of years at least—was probably not the most adequate expression of how that phenomenon of voice in Greek (and Latin, etc.) works and should be presented. This led to our developing a wholly parallel AGNT analysis (actually, different only for verbs). And thus a parallel AGNT appendix was called for, now available and called the revised innovating AGNT appendix. Though this parallel presentation is still in development, the corresponding appendix is now ready, especially disinct with respect to article 5.3 about voice in AGNT (written by Carl Conrad), but, as this affects the AGNT presentation far and wide, the innovating appendix has a distinct and unique signature.
The revised and revised innovating AGNT appendixes are really parallel and in some sense interchangeable. Unlike the Classic AGNT appendix, they contain addition information about new enhancements, for example, the more recent ERGs (English reference glosses) and PLERGs (Phrase literal English reference glosses) and PERGs (Phrasal English reference glosses).
In summary, the three forms of the the AGNT appendix are now available in this website, each serving a unique set of users. Please choose the form of such that corresponds to your need by simply clicking on one of the titles below. This will bring up the PDF file and allow you to either view it on the screen or download it to your computer or other device.
(Classic) AGNT Appendix (original pre-simplified but corrected) (also includes original introduction and acknowledgments)
Revised AGNT Appendix (simplified analysis and expanded, thoroughly corrected and upgraded) (also includes introduction and acknowledgments)
Revised Innovating AGNT Appendix (simplified analysis and expanded, thoroughly corrected and upgraded) , innovating with respect to treatment of voice of verbs. (also includes introduction and acknowledgments)
