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In this two-volume work, the first full-scale treatment of its kind in English, Harm Pinkster applies contemporary linguistic theories and the findings of traditional grammar to the study of Latin syntax. He takes a non-technical and principally descriptive approach, based on literary and non-literary texts dating from c.250 BC to c.450 AD. The volumes contain a wealth of examples to illustrate the grammatical phenomena under discussion, many of them from the worksof Plautus and Cicero, alongside extensive references to other sources of examples such as the Oxford Latin Dictionary and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.While the first volume explored the simple clause, this second volume focuses on the complex sentence and discourse. The first three chapters examine different types of subordinate clause; the following four then explore relative clauses, coordination, comparison, and secondary predicates. Later chapters investigate information structure and extraclausal expressions, word order, and discourse and related features. The Oxford Latin Syntax will be a valuable and up-to-date resource both forprofessional Latinists and all linguists with an interest in Classics.
List of contents
- 14: Subordinate clauses: common properties and internal structure
- 15: Subordinate clauses filling an argument position
- 16: Subordinate clauses filling a satellite position
- 17: Subordinate clauses with nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
- 18: Relative clauses
- 19: Coordination
- 20: Comparison
- 21: Secondary predicates
- 22: Information structure and extraclausal expressions
- 23: Word order
- 24: Discourse
About the author
Harm Pinkster is Emeritus Professor of Latin at the University of Amsterdam. He has held visiting professorships at the universities of Bologna, Aix-en-Provence, Penn State, Pavia, Venice, Oxford, and Chicago. His books include On Latin Adverbs (North-Holland, 1972; reprinted by Amsterdam University Press, 2005), Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (John Benjamins, 1983), and Latin Syntax and Semantics (Routledge, 1990). He is also the co-author of four of the five volumes of a Commentary on Cicero's De Oratore (Winter Verlag, 1981-1996). He is a member of the Academia Europaea, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
Summary
This second volume of a two-volume work applies contemporary linguistic theories and the findings of traditional grammar to the study of Latin syntax. It the first full-scale treatment of its kind in English, and contains extensive examples from literary and non-literary sources including Plautus and Cicero.
Additional text
Thought out to be the scientifically up-to-date replacement for the Ausfürliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache: Satzlehre, the Oxford Latin Syntax (...), is a monument to the Latin language and contemporary linguistics that no Latinist can be indifferent to.
Report
Overall, the OLS is a monumental achievement, and such idiosyncrasies as there are do not detract from this. These volumes present a comprehensive unified account of the whole of Latin syntax, broadly conceived, and they are both a source of reference for the familiar and also an invitation to think about it anew. RICHARD ASHDOWNE, University College, Oxford, THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
