Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin

*Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin* represents an altogether novel approach to its subject. Most innovative is the format: instead of technical prose acting as an obstacle to non-specialists, each of the forty-five chapters consists of an outline providing exactly the information essential to the student and simultaneously acting as a ready reference tool. But this is no bare-bones work. Supplementing the outline are numerous penetrating notes with a wealth of additional information and important new observations and ideas. After initial chapters on Indo-European comparative philology, the history of writing in Italy, and the pronunciation of Latin, the book treats the language’s entire historical phonology and morphology in detail, followed by a full and enlightening chapter on syntax—a topic that rarely receives the coverage it deserves. Thousands of textual citations from Roman authors of all periods firmly ground the data in their philological context. The broader linguistic milieu of ancient Italy is also covered, with a whole chapter devoted to Etruscan; and rounding out the book is a rich overview of the later evolution of Latin into the Romance languages. The result is the first truly comprehensive, accessible, and up-to-date history of Latin from its prehistoric beginnings down to its medieval and modern descendants. Clear, thorough, and exhaustively researched, this Outline will be essential reading for students and specialists in Classics and Indo-European studies for many years to come. This celebrated work by one of the foremost experts in Indo-European and Classical linguistics is now available in a fully revised second edition, thoroughly updated and corrected with over fifty pages of new material. The Outline's forty-five chapters offer a wealth of knowledge for both the generalist and the specialist in their treatment of the development of Latin from its earliest prehistoric origins down to the modern Romance languages. Not only covering the language's phonological, morphological, and syntactic prehistory in great depth, they also include important subsidiary topics like language contact and Etruscan. Basic information is presented in concise outline format in the main text and is augmented by countless additional details that populate the footnotes. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography followed by complete indices of forms, ancient sources, and subjects. Michael Weiss. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [535]-568) And Indexes.