recommend some very detailed grammars to me

[Junya]

Hi.

I like to read grammar.
Recently I realized it once again.
So I began feeling like reading more
grammar books daily.

I have one book,
E.C.Woodcock's New Latin Syntax.
I like it very much
because it gives a lot of lengthy explanations,
taking pages for each syntactical topic,
not just listing short definitions and sample sentences.
It helps me a lot to understand Latin syntax deeper.

So, please recommend some
similar sort of books to me.
Of course downloadble pdfs are welcome.
But, let me know also of printed books.
(I don't use Google books and Google Play,
since they are inconvenient in my
environment.)

[adrianus]

Salve Junya

These you know already, don't you:
Nonnè haec jam scis:

Allen & Greenough http://www.textkit.com/learn/ID/109/author_id/42/
Gildersleeve https://archive.org/details/gildersleeveslat00gilduoft

[Junya]

Hi Adrianus

I own both.
But E.C.Woodcock's book is a lot different
from them.
Its layout is not like an ordinary grammar (the kind of Allen&Greenough's and Gildersleeve&Lodge's.)
Its layout is like ordinary books, like novels or essays, with long paragraphs filling the page.

And it explains the syntax with much words.
It shows the ways to understand (not just accept without understanding) the each syntctical article of Latin language.
Those ways shown in the book seem to be the common acknowledged ones among the Latin scholars of his age.
But sometimes the way shown is Woodcock's private opinion.

Anyway, those lengthy explanations by Woodcock give the reader
a deeper understanding than the ordinary, standard-type grammars.

Adrianus do you know this kind of grammar ?
Could you recommend some ?
Maybe I should read scholastic treatises of Latin syntax,
if I seek for such stuff,
but I'm not a scholar and am not used to reading or, even to obtaining such papers.

[mwh]

I too like Woodcock
because he actually explains things
or tries to.
It is old however.

Linguistically more up to date is New perspectives on historical Latin syntax
by Baldi and Cuzzolin
in four volumes.
It is expensive.

If you are interested in Greek too
or in historical linguistics
there is Andrew Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin
which also provides deeper understanding
like Woodcock.

[Qimmik]

"It is old however." Dont say that! I was already a teenager when it was published.

If you're interested in historical/comparative Latin grammar, this might be worth looking at:

http://www.beechstave.com/weiss.htm

I wish Weiss would do something similar for Greek. Sihler is awkward to use.

[mwh]

So you too are old,
some might say.

[mwh]

Weiss is definitely the best recommendation. For some reason that slipped my old mind.

[Junya]

Thank you, mwh, Qimmik
I try the Weiss' book.

Baldi and Cuzzolin's are, though theirs are concentrated on the syntax and
so I eagerly want to have a look into them, too expensive for me now.
But definitely I will get all their volumes in the future, I think, when I have more money.
There would be a way that I ask a library to copy them and send to me.
But I have never used that library service,
and I think the copying cost would amount to over half of the books' price.

[mwh]

COuld you gain affiliation with an institutional library that has a subscription (or persuade it to take out a subscription)? That might give you on-line access.

[Junya]

Im not sure if I can ask you here about that library service,
but if it is ok, could you inform me more about that ?
`Online` means you can, after subscription, see online the facsimili of the books ?
Might I feel myself unqualified and be embarrassed asking libraries for such a scholarly service?

[bedwere]

Cletus Pavanetto
Elementa linguae et grammaticae latinae

[Junya]

mwh,
I have a friend on the internet who was a librarian.
I try asking her about that service.


Bedwere,
the book you recommend is written in Latin,
by an Italian.
Im not sure I can easily read it without
much consulting of dictionary.
At the present level of my learning skill,
I dont like consulting dictionaries many times when I read grammars.
But to other Latin learners here it would be a good information.
The price is rather cheap.
Thats nice.

[Damoetas]

Here are two recent monographs on specific grammatical topics:

Spevak, Olga. Constituent Order in Classical Latin Prose. John Benjamins, 2010. (https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/slcs.117/main)

---. The Noun Phrase in Classical Latin Prose. Brill, 2014. (http://www.brill.com/products/book/noun ... atin-prose)

The first volume of The Oxford Latin Syntax by Harm Pinkster is also forthcoming. A lot of articles are available on his website (http://www.harmpinkster.nl/index.php/publications).

[Junya]

Damoetas thank you.
Im starting to read Pinkster's monographs in Perseus.





Though I said above Google books and Google Play are
inconvenient in my environment, Google Play is ok.
But I cant fully use Google books, since
most of the books you would point to for me would
be closed in my location.
(Years ago somebody from northern europe
in this forum told me the way to use proxi site to
make Google books open to any location,
but I forgot it.)
Are there good ones for me among old books free on Google Play?

[Victor]

Baldi and Cuzzolin's are, though theirs are concentrated on the syntax and
so I eagerly want to have a look into them, too expensive for me now.
But definitely I will get all their volumes in the future, I think, when I have more money.

In spite of its bulk, this is not a systematic survey but an anthology of monographs by different authors. The approach is generally functional/typological rather than structuralist, and the articles vary greatly in length, readability, and utility, though the latter two factors will be determined to some extent by your own background.
The star of the show for me is Gerd Haverling's 200 page chapter (in volume 2) entitled "Actionality, Tense, and Viewpoint", which is marvellous both for its clarity and for its diachronic scope. On certain questions it does not pretend to be conclusive, whilst certain claims it makes will not meet with universal agreement. It offers penetrating insight, nonetheless.
At the opposite extreme, Hannah Rosen's "Coherence, Sentence Modification and Sentence-part Modification" (from Volume 1) is an impenetrably, and at times not even idiomatically, written compendium of data that gives us plenty of cold hard facts, admittedly, but little in the way of illumination.

There would be a way that I ask a library to copy them and send to me.
But I have never used that library service,
and I think the copying cost would amount to over half of the books' price.

I'd be astonished if that was legal. Are there no copyright laws in your country?

Baldi/Cuzzolin is no substitute for Woodcock, but equally Woodcock is no substitute for Baldi/Cuzzolin.

[Junya]

Thank you Victor.

As to the utility of baldi and cuzzolin's,
as a whole or just that 200-pages-chapter by gerd haverling you recommend,
are they profitable
for a person who is not a student or
scholar of linguistics,
but is only interested in improving the translating skill ?
Does reading of them help one translate
more correctly or deeply ?
Im very interested in the recommended chapter,
and want to get the volume 2 that include it.





Isnt photocopying allowed in the libraries ?



By the way,
I guess there may be one more way
to find and read deeply written grammars or their substitutes.
That is,
ask here if someone knows a nice scholastic treatise
attainable online.
I ask, and get one, and read it, and after having read that, then i ask again, ad infinitum.
I dont do that for now, but
I think it will work.
Several months ago i got a treatise (early 1900s) recommended here
and went to the online page from here and read it.