Which Latin Grammar

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi people,

I am looking for a Latin grammar as comprehensive and exhaustive as Smyth’s. I’ve got all the usual references (Kennedy, Hillard & Botting, North & Hillard, Colebourne, Woodcock & Bradley’s Arnold). However, I lack an all-encompassing work of the stature of Smyth’s Greek grammar. I have been taught by means of the old English public school-Oxbridge system so I am unfamiliar with these American grammars that I see cited all over the place. Since acquiring Smyth and getting used to its complexity, I’ve developed a healthy respect for American textbooks and I suspect an American-authored Latin grammar is exactly what I’m looking for. Which of the alternatives would you recommend?

Many thanks

2

Salve,

I’ve been referencing Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar from the College Classical Series (http://caratzas.com/index.cfm?category=19). So far, I don’t have any real complaints. I opted for this one over the apparently more “user-friendly” Bennett grammar mostly for aesthetic reasons. Bennett uses Js instead of Is in some of his tables/example sentences. For some reason, this really bothers me. Also, I think the Bennett grammar is advertised as being concise–this didn’t appeal to me, and I don’t think it will appeal to you.

Gildersleeve also has a good one from what I hear, but I don’t have any personal experience with it.

a link to Bennett: http://www.amazon.com/New-Latin-Grammar-Charles-Bennett/dp/1406915351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210715767&sr=8-1

a link to Gildersleeve:
http://www.amazon.com/Gildersleeves-Latin-Grammar-Basil-Gildersleeve/dp/0865163537/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210715818&sr=1-1

Another factor that played into my decision is that Allen & Greenough’s grammar was available at my school’s bookstore. It was simply convenient.

Rufus

PS.
I’m sure you could find Allen & Greenough on amazon.com

3

Hmm, I checked out the Gildersleeve and the Allen & Greenough and they seem almost exactly like the Kennedy to me - and that feels very lightweight compared with the Smyth. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that Latin is not as complex as Greek and therefore does not require to be written up in the kind of massive reference work that Smyth is. Perhaps Kennedy and Bradley’s Arnold really suffice for everything related to Latin. Many thanks…

4

As a recent convert from Allen & Greenough’s text, I recommend Gildersleeve’s. It seems to me to be more thorough, to contain more examples, and to preserve the Latin quotes more faithfully than other texts which I have encountered. It is somewhat lacking compared to A&G with respect to its asides into historical linguistics, but there are other books specifically for that topic that overshadow both grammars.

5

Ditto that recommendation for the Gildersleeve. The Latin citations are excellent, and I have yet to find a reference as detailed regarding versification and the stylistic trends in the various Latin poetic forms. I am unaware of a grammar that does for Latin what Smyth does for Greek.

6

I agree with the comparative complexity of Greek calling for something as exhaustive and thorough as Smyth.

Based on the other recommendations above, it looks like I might have to get my hands on a Gildersleeve. After all, one can’t have too many references.

Rufus

7

rem acu tetigisti. Bags me a copy of gildersleeve as well. Thanks to everyone for your help.

8

I am very late to the party with this response—15 years! But since this post turned up when I was researching a related topic, perhaps it’s worth adding a supplementary comment here.

For anyone looking for an English-language Latin grammar with even greater depth and coverage than Kennedy, Allen & Greenough, or Gildersleeve & Lodge, I would suggest the following:

Henry John Roby, A Grammar of the Latin Language from Plautus to Suetonius, 5th edn, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1887–89).
(Scans can be found at the Internet Archive.)

Roby has continued to be relevant and useful, because he concerned himself less with giving summaries of grammatical rules and more with assembling many quotations to illustrate different kinds of usage. Woodcock’s wonderful New Latin Syntax (which has already been mentioned) is in some ways a critical commentary on Roby. (Now, over sixty years later, many of Woodcock’s “prehistoric reconstructions” of the development of syntax have been rejected, but, as with Roby, the materials he assembled and the insight that he brought to them give to his book a continuing relevance and utility.)

And for a level beyond even Roby-plus-Woodcock, those who can read German (and nowadays that includes everyone with a smartphone and the Google Translate camera app) can consult the following:

Manu Leumann, J. B. Hofmann, and Anton Szantyr, Lateinische Grammatik auf der Grundlage des Werkes von Friedrich Stolz und Joseph Hermann Schmalz, new edn, 3 vols., Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 2.2 vols. 1–3 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1972–79).

Google Books has previews of Volume 1 (Lateinische Laut- und Formen-Lehre = “Latin Phonology and Morphology”) and Volume 3 (Stellenregister und Verzeichnis der nichtlateinischen Wörter = “List of Source Citations and Index of non-Latin Words”). The Internet Archive has a borrowable copy of Volume 2 (Lateinische Syntax und Stylistik = “Latin Syntax and Style”), which is probably the most useful one for readers here.

(Praetermitto, scilicet, paginam illam interretialem, Library Genesis nomine, qua exempla horum voluminum illicita inveniri possent.)

So far as I’m aware, Leumann-Hofmann-Szantyr remains the “big” grammar of reference for Classical Latin, though it was already regarded as “conservative” even when the first volumes of the original edition were appearing in the 1960s. (For help with medieval texts, there’s Peter Stotz’s five-volume contribution to the same series, Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters.)

I hope this information may be of use.

9

Thanks, Billet, for posting this. Sometimes I find an old post on here and don’t reply, because the post is so old. But posting is the right thing to do.

Roby’s work looks great. Thank you thank you.

10

if u can read french then Ernout Thomas Syntaxe latine would be good otherwise check Oxford Latin Syntax in two huge volumes. I did not find them very useful though last time I referred to them

11

Once again, a web search has led me back to this thread, where, over a year after I posted a recommendation of Roby’s grammar, I discover the reply by @Constantinus Philo’s suggesting Ernout and Thomas’s Syntaxe latine (1951; rev. edn 1953; repr. 1964), which can be perused at the Internet Archive. Thanks very much indeed! It looks excellent.

For my part, I’ll add that I’ve recently been looking into a one-volume grammar by George M. Lane (1823–97), who was Professor of Latin at Harvard. His A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges was nearly complete at his death and was edited for publication by his Harvard colleague and former pupil Morris H. Morgan (1898; rev edn, New York: American Book Company, 1903). A good scan of a copy in the Cornell library can be consulted at Hathi Trust.

I found out about this work through a “master list” of Latin resources compiled by a contributor to the Latin Language sub at Reddit (r/latin) with the handle @Unbrutal_Russian. He endorses it in the following words:

surprisingly descriptive, elaborate and abounding with examples for what it claims to be. Easiest to navigate (check the index) - my personal recommendation.