Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

This book is a paperback reissue of the hardbound edition published in 1995. It has the same content: There have been no revisions or other changes nor is there an updated preface. The subject matter is the historical phonology (35–242) and inflectional morphology (243–629) of Greek and Latin, with the latter organized according to part of speech and followed by word indexes (631–86). Andrew Sihler notes that this endeavor began as a revision of Carl Darling Buck’s Comparative grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), but that its final form is more than a revision, going well beyond Buck’s work in both the addition of new material based on more recent knowledge of Indo-European (e.g. laryngeals) and refinement in other areas (e.g. palatalization in Greek, contraction in Greek and Latin, the organization of the verb). S, in reacting to the ‘oracular’ (vii) nature of Buck’s exposition, not only presents the material but offers, when appropriate, discussion, explanation, and motivation, availing himself of insights provided by such well-known and more recent scholars of Indo-European as Warren Cowgill, Craig Melchert, Oswald Szemerenyi, and Calvert Watkins. S notes the necessity, due to limitations of space, of omitting a discussion of Greek and Latin word-formation and of historical linguistics generally, both of which found a place in Buck’s book.

There can be no disagreement with previous reviewers, who rightfully praised the erudition of his insights, and noted the sheer effort required to produce this fine piece of work. One of the most significant advances is S’s emphasis on function to supplement the traditional emphasis on form and formal categories. This is especially evident in the presentation and discussion of the verb. In S’s words, ‘the formal facts of a paradigm are capable of explaining only some of the changes that paradigms undergo—and verb systems are much subject to remodeling both formally and functionally’ (444). The discussion therefore proceeds not from the formal facts but from the recognition of two major functional types, eventive and stative, with the former divided into punctual and durative, and the categories associated with them (e.g. aorist with punctual eventives, tense with durative eventives, voice and mood with all eventives). The formal instantiations of categories are treated in this context (e.g. the instantiation of the category of tense is treated in conjunction with durative eventives).

Because this is a book that may well go through many additional printings as a result of continued demand from scholars and students, I would like to make several suggestions that, should revisions be possible, I believe would enhance its usefulness and accessibility to all, but especially students: (i) the addition of a bibliography; (ii) the relocation of the discussion of ablaut from phonology to morphology, the area of its primary relevance; (iii) the addition of a brief synchronic overview of the verbal systems of Ancient Greek and Latin to make more meaningful S’s statement that these systems have evolved in significantly different ways from their common origin (444); (iv) the replacement of the designation functional type with lexical or lexico-functional type in the discussion of verbs because it is the lexical morpheme of verb stems that determines functional differences; and (v) a clearer distinction of terminology such as tense and primes or features, thus instantiating formal categories (e.g. aorist, which appears to be used both as a term designating a paradigm and as a feature instantiating the category of aspect). In its present state, however, S’s contribution is already a handbook in the finest sense of the word, providing superior scholarship in the form of a comprehensive presentation and discussion of the facts and relevant hypotheses.