How is it? worth studying?
Hi, yes it’s worth studying, but it doesn’t replace the others. It’s set out in quite a different way.
My favourite syntax is still Woodcock’s, which is short enough (just a few hundred pages) that you can read it cover to cover (I’m doing it again now coincidentally), and written in nice full sentences for continuous reading, rather than just dry tables.
The Oxford Latin Syntax is closer to 3,000 pages: I’ve taken a decent chunk out of volume 1, but a long way to go, and haven’t made much progress on volume 2 despite getting it straight after its release earlier this year (http://discourse.textkit.com/t/oxford-latin-syntax-vol-2/18332/3). I’ll probably need to take another running jump at it in 2022 and will report back if I make any progress.
Cheers, Chad
Woodcock is good as an additional material to full grammars like Gildersleeve, etc.
Hi, Woodcock is more than additional material: it serves a different purpose. You can see from the preface and intro that Woodcock is heavily aimed at Latin prose composition, focusing on constructions ‘in which mistakes continue to be made even by Honours students right up to the end of their course’ (preface).
This means that Woodcock explains more variations than Gildersleeve (Pinkster notes them too), but I find Woodcock explains better when different constructions are used (which is important for Latin prose composition), whereas Pinkster more often notes that different constructions occur without explaining why.
An example is e.g. when to use genitive or ablative for arguments of price or value: Gildersleeve gives the general rule (ss. 379 and 404), Pinkster notes more variation (e.g. pp. 113 and 158), but it’s only really in Woodcock that it’s all brought together and you can work out the scenarios when one of the two is the preferred construction (pp. 68–70).
I guess I therefore prefer Woodcock as I have that old-fashioned bent towards Latin prose composition (an artefact of my having learned from books rather than teachers — still have never met a classicist in real life). Pinkster is definitely worth studying though in addition as there is a lot of useful material in there. To give a sense, here are my rough notes (not a book review, just my rough personal marginalia which I type up in Zotero, and so please ignore all typos etc. — this is a text dump from my notes, with formatting lost) on the start of Pinkster volume 1:
Chapter 1:
Preliminaries before the syntax proper. The takeaway points are:
- the syntax examples will be drawn primarily from Plautus’ plays (as these are interactive texts, aligned with Pinkster’s functional approach) and Cicero.
- the syntax is laid out on functionalist lines (i.e. emphasising language’s communicative aspect) rather than separate chapters on adverbs, adjectives, etc. (use the index to look up the latter).
Chapter 2:
Further preliminaries. Introduces the functionalist vocabulary needed to read the rest of the syntax.
Within a clause, a verb with its arguments forms a nucleus (the number of its arguments in a particular verb sense is its valency for that sense); optional elements are satellites, dividing into adverbials (e.g. ablative of time) called adjuncts and communicative utterances (e.g. certe) called disjuncts; there are also particles. Outside the clause itself, there can be appositional add-ons at the beginning (themes) or at the end (tails).
Combinations of main clauses are called compound; combinations of a main and subordinate clause(s) are called complex.
Within a clause, any part (i.e. which could be replaced as a unit with something else, e.g. magno opere replaced by valde) is called a constituent.
Verbs can mark four types of states of affairs:
(if controlled) controlled and dynamic (action), controlled and non-dynamic (position);
(if not controlled) non-controlled and dynamic (process), non-controlled and non-dynamic (state).
There are further refinements to this schema.
Other terms mentioned are largely the familiar ones from the existing syntaxes.
Chapter 3:
Further preliminaries. Mostly a summary of some Latin grammar for non-classicists, e.g. giving declensions and conjugations, which is unusual in a syntax.
The most useful part for me is this note on word order: the scale of adjectives below from objective to subjective, where adjectives at the beginning of the scale usually stand closer to their head noun and more often follow that noun:
function or purpose onerarius ‘used for transport’ >
substance ligneus ‘wooden’ >
origin or provenance Romanus ‘Roman’ >
time and place matutinus ‘of the early morning’ >
colour ruber ‘red’ >
shape rotundus ‘round’ >
age vetus ‘old’ >
human propensity crudelis ‘cruel’ >
physical property crudus ‘raw’ >
dimension and size longus ‘long’ and magnus ‘big’ >
evaluation bonus ‘good’, facilis ‘easy’.
Chapter 4:
The syntax proper begins here (from section 4.7 on p. 81).
Before that, some preliminaries — there are some complications in working out how many arguments a verb takes: does e.g. a fixed verb phrase like insidias dare have an argument (insidias) or not? What about when words like bibo (drink) don’t take an object (absolute use)? This is not however a fuzziness in Latin itself (a common feature), but a fuzziness in the boundaries of these new terms (valency etc.), and so is just a digression on how to lay out the verbs in the syntax itself (should I put this verb in the syntax section on verbs with X arguments or with Y arguments?).
Starting then at the syntax proper, over 60% of verb senses take two arguments (p. 81).
Pinkster however starts with the far less common set of one-place verbs (intransitives from p. 82 on, impersonals from p. 94 on):
Intransitive one-place verbs:
Pinkster gives different groupings of intransitives (taking one argument). I’m not quite sure which problem these lists solve – how are these lists meant to be used? (they don’t seem to add to understanding): the more useful parts of this section are:
- how intransitives can sometimes be treated as transitive by adding an internal / cognate accusative (p. 84 on), and
- the lists of emotion verbs that take the ablative of cause: angor ‘to be distressed’, doleo ‘to grieve (at)’ etc. (p. 90).
On the whole, this section gives lists of instances based on extensive data mining and a classification scheme which is interesting, but I thought Woodcock’s analysis on the whole was more penetrating and useful from an understanding syntax perspective: I feel like I am looking at a Victorian collection of pinned butterflies, neatly grouped based on genera and differentiae; I’d turn to Woodcock to understand the science of butterflies.
Impersonal one-place verbs:
This lists:
- the arguments that licet and oportet can take, with an acc. + inf. or subjunctive clause (rarely a noun) as its single subject argument in most cases; licet (but not oportet) can also take a dative such as mihi: p. 94,
- existential est, either with an acc. + inf. or subjunctive clause as its single subject argument, or with an adverb (recte est), sometimes also taking dative such as tibi: p. 95 on, and
- impersonal habet with bene or recte (like καλῶς ἔχει): p. 97.
Like for intransitives described above, it has a catalogue feel to me; I’d turn to Woodcock for understanding.
When Pinkster moves to two-places verbs, he repeats the preliminary digression (see notes above) on how there is a fuzziness in the number of arguments that a verb can take, noting how some arguments can be omitted (ellipsis) (p. 97 on). The real action for two-place verbs therefore only really starts at p. 99, divided into personal verbs (p. 99 on) and impersonal verbs (p. 132 on):
Personal two-place verbs:
These are helpfully sorted into verbs that take objects in the:
- accusative (p. 100 on—by far the most frequent, covering object affected or resulting on p. 101, cognates on p. 102, destination of motion on p. 102),
- dative from p. 104, with a helpful table of common verbs of this type grouped into 4 semantic classes of helping, pleasing, ruling and approaching;
(but not exclusively with dative) compounds with ob- (especially), ad-, ante-, in-, inter-, sub-, super-, and re- from p. 106, and with ex-, de- and (less commonly than with cum + ablative) co-/com-/con- on p. 107;
dative of so-called possession from p. 107, where the dative constituent is usually definite—often a personal pronoun—and the subject constituent is most often indefinite,
experiencer dative with libet on p. 110,
- ablative from p. 110, with
verbs of abundance (abundo ‘to be rich in’, floreo ‘to blossom’ etc.) and lacking (egeo ‘to need’, careo ‘to lack’ etc.) set out in a helpful table on p. 111,
verbs of confidence or reliance (fido ‘have confidence in’, nitor ‘rely on’) from p. 112,
verbs of surpassing or excelling (excello ‘surpass’, emineo ‘excel’) on p. 113,
verbs taking price as an argument from p. 113 (here the distribution between ablative and genitive is not explained anywhere near as well as in Woodcock: I was able to make a flowchart of their respective uses in the margins of Woodcock, whereas I could not do so from the information given in Pinkster),
the well-known verbs fruor ‘to enjoy’, fungor ‘to perform’, potior ‘to obtain’, utor ‘to use’, and vescor ‘to enjoy or feed on’ from p. 115,
- genitive from p. 116, with
verbs taking source or cause of emotion (e.g. miserior ‘have pity (on)’) from p. 116,
verbs of remembering and forgetting (e.g. memini ‘remember’), noting accusative more frequent with inanimate entities and with neuter pronouns / adjectives, from p. 117,
prepositional from p. 119, with
- a helpful table of verbs of acting or living together, talking or fighting with cum + ablative on p. 119,
verbs of difference with ab + ablative from p. 121,
- non-object arguments (e.g. of space) from p. 123, e.g. maneo ‘remain’ with adverb, etc.
Some verbs changing their sense when taking accusative versus dative arguments (e.g. convenio with accusative ‘visit’, with dative ‘agree with’ are tabulated on p. 129.
Light on explanation but a useful conspectus of the types of objects in particular that a verb can take, helpfully tabulated on p. 99 (patient, experiencer, recipient, associative such as cum X, location): in other syntaxes, these are spread out across different chapters, like in Woodcook: one needs to consult the ablative or dative chapters to get the verbs that can take ablative or dative objects respectively.
Impersonal two-place verbs:
from p. 132:
- unpleasant emotion verbs (e.g. paenitet ‘it causes regret’) from p. 132, with cause of emotion in genitive or subject clause or neuter pronoun, experiencer in accusative,
- interest ‘be in the interest of’, rēfert ‘be the business of’ (less common from Cicero on) from p. 135.
Three-place verbs: from p. 137, e.g. instruo:
- acc. + abl.: sometimes with an animate being in the accusative (e.g. civem), and an ablative usually inanimate (e.g. pecunia), sometimes animate in a military context (e.g. propugnatoribus ‘combat troops’). There is a useful table of verbs taking accusative and ablative (verbs of supplying with, teaching, filling, mixing, competing and changing) on p. 146. Examples of different constructions with these verbs begin from p. 149, but without much explanation as to when one or the other construction is preferred, other than for the verb do (and its compound circumdo) on p. 152: “the accusative + dative pattern is preferred if the thing given is either a neuter pronoun or adjective or a clause. The accusative + ablative pattern is preferred if the accusative NP denotes a human being, and, as such, is more often found in the passive than the other pattern.”
- acc. + dat.: verbs of giving (e.g. do ‘give’), communication (e.g. dico ‘say’), bringing (e.g. fero ‘bring’), joining (e.g. iungo ‘join’) take an accusative plus dative, typically with inanimate object in accusative and animate recipient in dative, from p. 140,
- acc. + gen.: from p. 153, for
judicial or penalty verbs from p. 153 (there is a helpful table on p. 154 of verbs of accusing, catching and convicting or involving in crime taking the genitive),
verbs taking a value argument (e.g. aestimo 'value) from p. 158 — as noted above re p. 113 on, Woodcock is far more useful on this than Pinkster (Pinkster merely notes that there are variations, Woodcock explaining when each applies)
verbs of reminding from p. 160 (e.g. commoneo ‘remind’),
- acc. + prepositional phrase: typically where the recipient is not animate, unlike the dative in the previous bullet, or where the verb is used figuratively rather than literally (if literally, the prepositional phrase is more common), from p. 141 and also from p. 161 (the sections are spread out). There is a useful table on p. 162 of verbs of sharing and dividing, exchanging, bringing together and making compatible which take a cum + ablative argument,
- acc. + acc.: from p. 163, with a useful table of verbs of teaching, asking for, asking and hiding taking a double accusative on p. 165.
There is a useful table of verbs taking a position argument — verbs of putting in a place (e.g. pono ‘put’), assigning (e.g. numero ‘reckon’) or inserting (e.g. imprimo ‘plant’) on p. 175.
There is also a useful table of verbs taking a source argument — verbs of moving away from (e.g. pello ‘expel’), keeping away from (e.g. arceo ‘ward off’), compounds with separative preverbs (e.g. claudo ‘shut’) on p. 179.
Rather as a tease, Pinkster notes that for mitto’s taking of a dative or ad + accusative argument “there are distributional differences both for the object constituents and for the third arguments” (p. 142), however does not explain what these differences are. …
Cheers, Chad