The Oxford Latin Syntax. Volume II: The Complex Sentence and Discourse by Harm Pinkster (review)

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Reviewed by:

• The Oxford Latin Syntax. Volume II: The Complex Sentence and Discourse by Harm Pinkster
• Andrew R. Dyck

Harm Pinkster. The Oxford Latin Syntax. Volume II: The Complex Sentence and Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xxxii, 1,438. $190.00. ISBN 9-780199-230563.

In 1969, after refuting the widely held belief that A, B, and C coordination is not found in Cicero and Caesar, Harm Pinkster lamented that “a continuous up to date re-editing of an opus maximum like K(ühner)-St(egmann), that aims at providing the philologist with a mass of grammatical facts and not so much at giving him insight into the historical evolution, has been omitted” (Mnemosyne 22: 267). Having identified that gap, Pinkster set about to fill it and provide a complete analysis of the Latin language aided by the tools of modern linguistics. Having catered for the simple clause in the first volume of his Syntax (2015), reviewed in this journal at 110 (2017), 575–76, with this volume, which appeared shortly before his death, Pinkster put the coping stone on his project.

The format of the previous volume continues, with numbered sections and sub-sections each beginning with a descriptive analysis of the phenomena and supported by example sentences mostly drawn from Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, each supplied with an English rendering. Many of the sections also include [End Page 228] a “Supplement,” with further examples quoted in a smaller font and without an English version. It is in the area of terminology that readers trained in traditional Latin grammar are likely to have difficulty. The terminology of Dutch Functional Grammar is used throughout, so readers unfamiliar with it should consult the explanations at the beginning of Volume 1. But the new terminology sometimes seems unnecessarily opaque, as, for instance, when Pinkster speaks of “the expansion type” of result clause (p. 308), by which he means what we ordinarily call a “consecutive clause with limiting force,” an expression he does not use.

Since the large grammar of Kühner and Stegmann is the model, this second volume deals, like theirs, with the various types of subordinate clauses. There are some differences, however. Thus, Pinkster treats the ablative absolute in this volume as a clause, whereas Kühner and Stegmann handled it in their first volume under the participle (1:766). One might not have expected a detailed treatment of word order (pp. 948–1137)—Kühner and Stegmann offered a relatively brief one (2:589–629)—or of stylistic matters (pp. 1138–1231). This volume concludes with an Index Locorum and a General Index to both volumes, prepared by the author’s daughter Akke Pinkster (pp. 1303–1438).

As in Volume 1, Pinkster explores a wide range of materials and does so from a deep base of knowledge of linguistics and of European languages. A number of myths that are often disseminated in Latin classrooms are unceremoniously exploded, such as the idea that Latin has a pervasive Subject-Object-Verb word order. In fact, in a study of the languages of Europe using twelve variables of constituent order, Latin emerges as the most flexible (p. 966). Another instance is the doctrine, found in some grammars, that high frequency asyndeton is an archaic feature; but the frequency in Seneca is very high, so it is better described as a stylistic preference (p. 1163).

In general, reflecting both his own interests and those of recent scholarship, Pinkster is at his best in the various kinds of interactive discourse, where, as it happens, his predecessors are weakest. Thus, he offers a section on “curses and swear words” with an accompanying table showing distribution by the speaker’s gender (pp. 919–22). Typical of Pinkster’s systematic approach is the treatment of interjections, which begins with a definition of the term and then divides them into types with attention to the authors and periods of their occurrence (pp. 923–37), whereas the short treatment by Kühner and Stegmann (2:272–74) is mainly concerned with the syntax of any accompanying noun. Similarly, Pinkster offers a fairly detailed treatment of “address” (pp. 937–47), whereas Kühner and Steg-mann are interested...