{"id":1678,"date":"2011-08-08T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1678"},"modified":"2011-08-01T08:38:11","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T06:38:11","slug":"new-perspectives-on-latin-historical-syntax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1678","title":{"rendered":"New perspectives on Latin historical syntax"},"content":{"rendered":"
New perspectives on Latin historical syntax<\/strong>, vol. 3: Constituent syntax: Quantification, numerals, possession, anaphora. Ed. by Philip Baldi<\/strong> and Pierluigi Cuzzolin<\/strong>. (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2010. Pp. xxi, 529. ISBN 9783110207545<\/a>. $195 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by David Elton Gay<\/strong>, Bloomington, IN<\/em><\/p>\n

New perspectives in Latin historical syntax, vol. 3<\/em> begins with an introduction by Baldi and Cuzzolin giving a survey of the theoretical approach used in the book : they refer to it as a \u2018functional-typological approach,\u2019 though anyone with a sound command of traditional Latin grammar should be able to follow the essays with no problem. The introduction indicates the audiences the book is intended for: the \u2018first of these,\u2019 they write, \u2018is the community of linguists\u2026\u2019; the second group \u2018is Classicists, especially Latinists, who are interested in the syntax and semantics of Latin poetic and prose texts\u2019; and the last group is \u2018Indo-Europeanists, who have an abiding interest in the syntactic history of a principal Indo-European language, and whose concerns for the syntax of the protolanguage will be directly addressed by the contents and approach of this project\u2019 (13). Although not included, a group that should be are Latin teachers. Though most of what is in these essays would be over the head of my Latin students, they nonetheless draw attention to important aspects of Latin syntax and to nuances in the language that I can easily transfer to my teaching of Latin.<\/p>\n

The articles cover four areas. In the first article, Alessandra Bertocchi, Mirka Maraldi, and Anna Orlandini \u2018provide an analysis of indefinite items [such as] quis<\/em>, aliquis<\/em>, [and] quispiam<\/em>\u2019 (13). Jes\u00fas de la Villa then takes up Latin numerals in their various forms and the development of the indefinite article. Philip Baldi and Andrea Nuti describe \u2018the evolution and use of predicative possession\u2019 (14); Finally, Silvia Pieroni examines anaphora and deixis.<\/p>\n

Though the writing is often less clear than it might be, each of the articles offers an intriguing look at important issues in Latin syntax and semantics. In fact, semantics plays such an important role in these essays it is surprising that it was not included in the title of the book. The descriptions in each subject area are much fuller than is usually found in Latin grammars: each of the authors at some point echoes Jes\u00fas de la Villa\u2019s accurate comment that \u2018what we find in [Latin] grammars and monographs is a partial description, mainly focused on morphology\u2026\u2019 (175).<\/p>\n

A small complaint is that the book rarely indicates the dates of Latin authors. This would be helpful for the non-Latinist reading the book. A fuller explanation of the periodization of Latin would have been useful for the same reason.<\/p>\n

The volumes of New perspectives on Latin historical syntax<\/em> fill a definite need for studies of Latin syntax and semantics that are both historical and descriptive, and may perhaps make Latin more of interest to the wider linguistic community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New perspectives on Latin historical syntax, vol. 3: Constituent syntax: Quantification, numerals, possession, anaphora. Ed. by Philip Baldi and Pierluigi Cuzzolin. (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2010. Pp. xxi, 529. ISBN 9783110207545. $195 (Hb). Reviewed by David Elton Gay, Bloomington, IN New perspectives in Latin historical syntax, vol. 3 begins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1679,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}