chatgpt and simple tasks

Greek Learning Greek
1

Chatgpt is doing pretty well on the simple parsing and defining jobs I gave. It’s fast too. Perhaps others might give it some test questions.

It answers questions about the principal parts of Greek verbs. Just for fun I asked this question:

“is cumquat a principal part of eimi?”

Chatgpt replied: ‘No, “cumquat” is not a principal part of the verb “eimi” (εἰμί) in Ancient Greek. “Cumquat” is a type of citrus fruit, not a form of the verb “to be.”’

Moreover, it seems to understand ancient Greek written in Roman characters. (what’s the right word for that writing?)

2

I’ve been using it for parsing verbs, and also for giving simple definitions.

I type it in the greek characters though (sometimes missing accents because I always forget where to find them on my keyboard).

It’s pretty good for parsing. Not perfect. Sometimes it doesn’t recognize irregular words or forms.

I also specify that I’m looking for koine or ancient greek, not modern. I don’t know how much of a difference that makes.

3

oh, and I should add that at one point I asked it for the principle parts of a verb and it only gave me some of them. I had to correct it and tell it what it was missing. The cool thing about the LLMs is that they do learn if you give them feedback.

4

Reposting here where it belongs:

I haven’t checked on its capabilities of parsing Greek and Latin, but it 3.5 did an absolutely terrible job at parsing or even producing paradigms of Akkadian. I haven’t bothered using it for facts since.

The possibilities of hallucinations (it’s not a fact-spitting machine) still make me leery of using it for translation purposes.

We’ve talked about this over at StackExchange, too. Consensus seems to be it’s ok as a tool, but not trustworthy.

5

Chat-Gpt-4o is doing a very fine job translating elementary Greek into Simple English, in fact I am finding it a God send. For example, here is a passage from Thrasymachus:

Ἕκτωρ: σὺ οὖν μὴ δάκρυε, ἀλλ᾽ ἐρώτα.
Θρασύμαχος: δηλοῦτε οὖν μοι διὰ τί χωλός ἐστιν ὁ “Εκτωρ.
Ἕκτωρ: δηλῶ σοι δή. ἀλγῶ γὰρ τοὺς πόδας. ὡς δεινὸς
δή ἐστιν ὁ ᾿Αχιλλεύς. ἄνδρας γὰρ ἀποκτείνει
καὶ κακὰ ποιεῖ τοὺς νεκρούς.
Θρασύμαχος: καὶ τίς ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ κακοῦ ἀρχή;
Ἕκτωρ: γυνή τις, Ελένη τὸ ὄνομα.
Αἰακός: πῶς γὰρ οὔ; γυνὴ γάρ τις ἀεί ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ κακοῦ
ἀρχή.
φωνή τις: κἀγὼ πιστεύω. ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ἡ Ελένη.
Θρασύμαχος: καὶ τί σὺ μανθάνεις περὶ τῆς Ελένης;
φωνή τις: ἀλλὰ τί οὐ μανθάνω; ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι Πάρις, 6
τῆς Ἑλένης ἀνήρ.
Θρασύμαχος: τίς οὖν ἐστὶν ἡ τοῦ κακοῦ ἀρχή;
Παρις: ἄλλη τις γυνή. ὑμεῖς δὲ σιγᾶτε, κἀγὼ λέγω.
Θρασύμαχος: λέγε δὴ ἡμῖν.

And here is the translation

Hector: You then do not cry, but ask.
Thrasymachus: Show me then why Hector is lame.
Hector: I will show you indeed. For I suffer in my feet. How terrible Achilles is. For he kills men and mistreats the dead.
Thrasymachus: And what is the beginning of the evil?
Hector: A woman, Helen is her name.
Aiakos: How could it not be? For a woman is always the beginning of evil.
A voice: And I believe. But not Helen.
Thrasymachus: And what do you learn about Helen?
A voice: But what do I not learn? For I am Paris, Helen’s husband.
Thrasymachus: So who is the beginning of the evil?
Paris: Another woman. But you be quiet, and I will speak.
Thrasymachus: Speak to us then.

All of that makes perfect sense. It is also good at finding synonyms.