Customer Reviews

A Latin Grammar

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Intelligently organized and formatted, this Latin grammar is an excellent resource for beginning and intermediate Latin students. In his preface, the author states that he intends the book to supersede the classic Latin grammar written by Benjamin Hall Kennedy. I'm not familiar with that work, apparently a mainstay of British Latin students for generations. My own acquaintance is with the grammars of American Latinists such as Bennett, Gildersleeve, Hadley, and Allen & Greenough.

The author has wisely chosen to leave out cumbersome, needless detail. Instead, clarity and simplicity are everywhere in abundance. Each section describing a specific grammatical point begins with examples of the construction -- if an analogue exists -- in English. In an age where students' knowledge of basic English grammar can no longer be taken for granted, this is a useful feature indeed.

Arguably the best feature of the book is the way in which grammar points are illustrated by short, easily comprehensible Latin sentences in bold type, with accompanying translations. To his credit, Morwood has studiously avoided the approach found in grammars of yesteryear, viz., using much longer sentences pulled out of classical Latin authors such as Caesar or Cicero to illustrate even the most simple grammatical rule.

The value of the book for teachers is enhanced by the inclusion in each chapter of practice sentences in both Latin (some of which are from classical authors) and English. Separate English-Latin and Latin-English vocabularies at the back of the book are designed to accompany the practice exercises. There is also a "reference grammar" overview of the verb system, bordered with a grey margin for ease of reference. The book also contains a very handy Glossary of Grammatical Terms.

In all, a splendid little book of enormous utility; highly recommended for those seeking a clearly written and easy to understand treatment of basic Latin grammar.

This is not a course in Latin but on the other hand it is not a reference grammar either. As the introduction says, "it aims to be a 'primer' (a first book) and at the same time something more than that." In fact, it is a short introduction to all the major grammatical points of the language as well as a handy reference for the accidence, without covering all the fine points you would expect to find in a true reference grammar like Gildersleeve. I particularly like the convenient groupings of things like place words (ubi, hic, illic, inde, etc.) and some of the confusing adverbs and conjunctions like quidem, quin, quominus, and quamuis (not quamvis, note; the letter "v" is not used in this book). There are a few short exercises, but no keys. Appendices cover dates, money, Roman names, literary terms, and weights and measures. A short vocabulary includes only words used in the exercises. All in all, a surprising amount of information is packed into less than 200 pages, yet the book does not feel at all dense or cramped.

The Latin grammar by James Morwood is a smoothly flowing, accessible guide to the Latin language, providing many short sentence examples and explaining nouns and noun inflection, adjectives, adverbs, verb conjugation, and sentence construction in depth. The readability is excellent, and the information presented is easily utilized.

This is a great reference grammar for anyone studying Latin. Complete, concise, portable, well-organized, and cheap. It has short, to-the-point explanations of all points of Latin grammar. Perfect for the beginning/intermediate student of Latin who just needs a quick explanation of usage or forms. There are excellent tables of forms for nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, etc. that are very helpful for review. The only problem i have with this book is the omission of 'v' in favor of 'u' throughout, hence 'vivo' is spelled 'uiuo' making the obvious derivative "vivacious" not as obvious. I understand the argument, but if I'm not mistaken wasn't 'V' the letter that was used in Classical Latin? 'IESVS CHRISTVS' not 'IESUS CHRISTUS'. Also, if we want to read Latin as Cicero did shouldn't we eliminate punctuation LOWER-CASE LETTERS AND WORDSPACINGTHESECONVENTIONSWERENOTUSEDUNTILHUNDREDSOFYEARSLATER That said, this is a great little reference grammar for those starting out in Latin.. buy it!

This book is a must have for the student of Latin. It is by far the most concise book on Latin grammar out there. It is excellent for review and as a reference tool. It is not a textbook and should not be used to learn the langauge. Wheelock and others are more helpful for that purpose. But you have already studied a year or two of Latin and need an occaisonal refresher on the conjugations, declension or grammatical rules this is a highly useful book to own. It is remarkably well organized and I have found it especially useful as a way of reviewing and reinforcing previously learned rules and forms.

This book is directed mostly at more advanced students of language whom have a grasp of basic language vocabulary
(e.g. verbs, declensions, cases, tenses, etc.). It is none the less very helpful to the begginer student as well because of its lexicon of language words at the beggining of the book with in-depth descriptions of each case, tense, declension, and so on.

This is small and compact yet still has more than enough information readily at hand. One nice thing is that for the paradigms, for instance, something other than the usual 'porto' and 'femina' are used. This isn't really important, but it's nice. Also each grammar rule has a couple of illustrated sentences, which often show how to recast English thought into Roman thought.
It has a few paragraphs on the pronunciation of Latin in England that, while not particularly useful and vaguely interesting, does show what classical --as opposed to Church -- pronunciation is/was.
One bit of pretentiousness: the author is "delighted to have banished the letter 'v' from the Latin alphabet. It was never there." Maybe not, but neither were lower case letters.
But as a one volume, fairly inclusive grammar, it's worth the price.

As others have said, Morwood has written a highly readable, well-organized, and refreshingly practical introduction to Latina grammar. I do wish he had spent a bit more time covering different constructions (past contrary to fact, future less vivid, and so on), but this is a relatively minor complaint. My most significant problem is that, while Morwood had the vision and lack of enslavement to convention to demonstrate that the consonantal and vocalic /v/ were identical in Lingva Latina, he nevertheless chose to represent both using 'u.' Had he done this, he might have gone even further, eliminating ahistorical practices such as miniscule letters and interword spacing. However, while these two make words easier to distinguish and to understand--distinguishing the "Caecvs" mentioned in Marcvs Tvllivs Cicero's Pro Caelio to be a nickname of sorts for a specific man (Appivs Clavdivs) rather than simply "a blind man"--the use of 'u' in Lingva Latina, like 'j,' as Cicero would say, "nihil habet propositi praeter contvmeliam." In this respect, Morwood is far better than most, and you will not find anything so grotesque as "jactum." But he could have done far better in this respect.

The book is very complete but it's best for quick reference as it misses some grammar points/explanations. For further and deeper reference Allen & Greenough's grammar is better.