New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin

New
Paperback
2008
$51.86

Like Carl Darling Buck's Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European. The only way to make a reconstructed language like Proto-Indo-European intelligible and intellectually defensible is to present at least some of the basis for reconstructing its features and, in the process, to discuss reasoning and methodology of reconstruction (including a weighing of alternative reconstructions). The result is a compendious handbook of Indo-European phonology and morphology, and a vade mecum of Indo-European linguistics - the focus always remaining on Greek and Latin. The non-classical sources for historical discussion are mainly Vedic Sanskrit, Hittite, and Germanic, with occasional but crucial contributions from Old Irish, Avestan, Baltic, and Slavic.

Synopsis

Like Carl Darling Buck's Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European. The only way to make a reconstructed language like Proto-Indo-European intelligible and intellectually defensible is to present at least some of the basis for reconstructing its features and, in the process, to discuss reasoning and methodology of reconstruction (including a weighing of alternative reconstructions). The result is a compendious handbook of Indo-European phonology and morphology, and a vade mecum of Indo-European linguistics - the focus always remaining on Greek and Latin. The non-classical sources for historical discussion are mainly Vedic Sanskrit, Hittite, and Germanic, with occasional but crucial contributions from Old Irish, Avestan, Baltic, and Slavic.

$51.86

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 720
Publisher: OUP USA
Published: 27 Nov 2008
ISBN 10: 0195373367
ISBN 13: 9780195373363

Media Reviews

... classicists, but especially linguists and Indo-Europeanists, will be grateful to Sihler for undertaking and completing successfully the enormous task of providing them with a modern comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. --Classical World
... a clear exhaustive presentation of the facts....We have to be thankful to the author for offering us a reliable guide for further study in the historical linguistics of the classical languages. --The Journal of Indo-European Studies
Teachers of Greek and Latin grammar will do well to consult this work... --Religious Studies Review
... the author's erudition is evident on every page, and the discussion includes many persuasive insights into the countless phenomena it ranges over....a book which no Indo-Europeanist can afford to ignore... --The Classical Journal
... the New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin ...applies wide learning and prodigious labor toward filling many of the serious gaps that the present century had opened, or widened, in Buck's essentially nineteenth-century work. --lassical Views

.,. classicists, but especially linguists and Indo-Europeanists, will be grateful to Sihler for undertaking and completing successfully the enormous task of providing them with a modern comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. --Classical World
.,. a clear exhaustive presentation of the facts....We have to be thankful to the author for offering us a reliable guide for further study in the historical linguistics of the classical languages. --The Journal of Indo-European Studies
Teachers of Greek and Latin grammar will do well to consult this work... --Religious Studies Review
.,. the author's erudition is evident on every page, and the discussion includes many persuasive insights into the countless phenomena it ranges over....a book which no Indo-Europeanist can afford to ignore... --The Classical Journal
.,. the [New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin] ...applies wide learning and prodigious labor toward filling many of the serious gaps that the present century had opened, or widened, in Buck's essentially nineteenth-century work. --lassical Views

, .. classicists, but especially linguists and Indo-Europeanists, will be grateful to Sihler for undertaking and completing successfully the enormous task of providing them with a modern comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. --Classical World
, .. a clear exhaustive presentation of the facts....We have to be thankful to the author for offering us a reliable guide for further study in the historical linguistics of the classical languages. --The Journal of Indo-European Studies
Teachers of Greek and Latin grammar will do well to consult this work... --Religious Studies Review
, .. the author's erudition is evident on every page, and the discussion includes many persuasive insights into the countless phenomena it ranges over....a book which no Indo-Europeanist can afford to ignore... --The Classical Journal
, .. the [New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin] ...applies wide learning and prodigious labor toward filling many of the serious gaps that the present century had opened, or widened, in Buck's essentially nineteenth-century work. --lassical Views

., . classicists, but especially linguists and Indo-Europeanists, will be grateful to Sihler for undertaking and completing successfully the enormous task of providing them with a modern comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. --Classical World
., . a clear exhaustive presentation of the facts....We have to be thankful to the author for offering us a reliable guide for further study in the historical linguistics of the classical languages. --The Journal of Indo-European Studies
Teachers of Greek and Latin grammar will do well to consult this work... --Religious Studies Review
., . the author's erudition is evident on every page, and the discussion includes many persuasive insights into the countless phenomena it ranges over....a book which no Indo-Europeanist can afford to ignore... --The Classical Journal
., . the [New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin] ...applies wide learning and prodigious labor toward filling many of the serious gaps that the present century had opened, or widened, in Buck's essentially nineteenth-century work. --lassical Views

Author Bio

Andrew L. Sihler is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison.