Review of Oniga, Renato (2014), Latin: a Linguistic Introduction (Edited and Translated by Norma Schifano). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Résumé En

Renato Oniga’s Latin: a Linguistic Introduction is a (slightly updated) translation of an Italian original, which was published in 2007 (Milano: FrancoAngeli). Perhaps the most striking feature of the reviewed volume is that it incorporates into the discussion of Latin grammar insights from modern linguistic theory, and more particularly generative grammar, i.e. the research programme initiated by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s. As such, the enterprise is certainly commendable: with the odd exception, classicists have not often taken full advantage of progress that has been made over the last decades in various subfields of general linguistics (not only in the area of (formal) syntax and semantics, but also for instance with respect to corpus linguistics). The result is a dearth of theoretically informed research on both Latin and Ancient Greek linguistics (cf. also Devine & Stephens 2013: 3 for similar remarks). However, writing an introductory text raises the problem of balancing out empirical coverage and theoretical sophistication, which is never going to be an easy matter. Although in the book under review the chapters on phonology and especially word formation (morphology and morphosyntax) are certainly relatively successful and at times even interesting, the part about syntax is much less felicitous, for reasons that I will discuss below.