The Blackwell history of Latin Language

Clackson, James and Geoffrey Horrocks. The Blackwell History of the Latin Language. Pp. viii + 324. Malden, MA, Oxford and Carlton: Wiley and Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Cased, £50, US$99.95. ISBN: 978-1-4051-6209-8.

Reviews:

1. Brent Vine, University of California, Los Angeles. Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 2009.03.21. http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-03-21.html (18.05.2010).

From the Review:

Is this, then, a replacement for Palmer? In most respects, yes. Even where Clackson and Horrocks defer to Palmer's rather more extensive coverage of lexical matters (p. vii), they sell themselves short, as the book serves up many good discussions of vocabulary (e.g. pp. 45ff. on religious and other cultural terms shared by Latin/Italic, Greek, and Etruscan; p. 223 on lexical features of Latin poetic diction; pp. 283f. on late Latin lexical replacements; etc.). Yet in one important respect, the book is not a stand-alone history of the Latin language, as it does not provide -- and was not intended to provide -- "a systematic overview of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language" (p. vii). Palmer's presentation of these matters is hopelessly out of date, but for this material other resources are now (or will soon be) available, such as (especially for the phonology and morphology) Baldi 2002, Meiser 1998, Sihler 1995, and (the best of the lot) Weiss (forthcoming); and for syntax, Baldi and Cuzzolin (forthcoming).

2. Белов, А. М. 2009. Вопросы языкознания 6 (Ноябрь-декабрь). 114-118:

Из рецензии:

Как кажется, рецензируемая "История латинского языка" представляет собой весьма полезное сочинение, особенно в тех своих разделах, которые выше названы "удаюными". Особенно уместной она представляется на практиюеских занятиях, связанных с разбором латинских текстов разлиюных эпох, анализом эпиграфического материала и данных древних языков Италии. Что касается ее общетеоретической ценности, то это уже зависит от конкретного объекта теории.

References

Baldi, Philip.  2002. Foundations of Latin. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Meiser, Gerhard. 1998. Historische Laut- und Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache. Darmstadt: Wissenshaftliche Buchgeselschaft.

Palmer, Leonard Robert.  1987 [1954]. The Latin Language. University of Oklahoma Press.

Sihler, Andrew L. 1995. New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Weiss, Michael. 2009. Outline of the Comparative Grammar of Latin. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave

Baldi, Philip, Pierluigi Cuzzolin (eds.). 2009.  New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, Vol. 1: Syntax of the Sentence. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 180/1). Berlin/New York:  Mouton de Gruyter.