Hooray! I've emailed the first draft of my research on punctuation in papyrus P66 to my 'supervisor' in Cambridge! I'm sure he'll make loads of suggestions about how it could be improved, but I'm pleased to have got this far.
And my conclusions? Well, the major ones are: first there's a definate hierarchy of punctuation marks in this manuscript (a new line, then a double dot, then a single midpoint or an apostrophe. The chevrons (>) are not punctuation marks - though what they're for, I don't know!). Second, 99% of the marks make sense, but, third, because the scribe is inconsistent in his use of punctuation, the presence of a mark could be significant to the meaning of a sentence or phrase, but the absence of one is definitely not significant.
If that doesn't make sense, don't worry - this work has been in an obscure corner of an obscure field of study. Nevertheless, I've had an offer to publish it, and it might eventually be useful if others do similar studies in other manuscripts.
I don't know how you're amanging to stay sane - I love english grammar but even so I'd have to dig really deep to proof read or check it - sounds like heavy going but I'm sure if you keep at it one day someone will say - "thank you God for Mike Warren - He's saved me a lot of time"! Like you said earlier "How long does it take?"
ReplyDelete..Well done 'Mike<
ReplyDelete..Let>s hope 'you get publised<
..Mike ' <:-)
Well done for reaching your goal! Persistance and focus eventually bears fruit: may the fruits of your work be a great blessing to all and a glorification to Christ Jesus.
ReplyDelete