THE present book is a careful revision of the edition of 1888. This revision was planned and actually begun in the lifetime of Professor Greenough and has been carried out in accordance with principles that met with his full approval. The renumbering of the sections has made it possible to improve the arrangement of material in many particulars and to avoid a certain amount of repetition which was inevitable in the former edition. Thus, without increasing the size of the volume, the editors have been able to include such new matter as the advance in grammatical science has afforded. The study of historical and comparative syntax has been pursued with considerable vigor during the past fifteen years, and the well-established results of this study have been inserted in their appropriate places. In general, however, the principles and facts of Latin syntax, as set forth by Professor Greenough, have stood the test both of scientific criticism and of practical use in the class-room, and accordingly the many friends of Allen and Greenough's Grammar will not find the new edition strange or unfamiliar in its method or its contents. The editors have seen no occasion to change long-settled nomenclature or to adopt novel classifications when the usual terms and categories have proved satisfactory. On the other hand, they have not hesitated to modify either doctrines or forms of statement whenever improvement seemed possible.
In the matter of ``hidden quantity'' the editors have been even more conservative than in the former revision. This subject is one of great difficulty, and the results of the most recent investigations are far from harmonious. In many instances the facts are quite undiscoverable, and, in general, the phenomena are of comparatively slight interest except to special students of the arcana of philology. No vowel has been marked long unless the evidence seemed practically decisive.
The editors have been fortunate in securing the advice and assistance of Professor E. S. Sheldon, of Harvard University, for the first ten pages, dealing with phonetics and phonology. They are equally indebted to Professor E. P. Morris, of Yale University, who has had the kindness to rsvise the notes on historical and comparative Syntax. Particular acknowledgment is also due to Mr. M. Grant Daniell, who has cooperated in the revision throughout, and whose accurate scholarship and long experience as a teacher have been of the greatest service at every point.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1903.
Latin Grammar is usually treated under three heads: 1. Words and Forms; 2. Syntax; 3. Prosody. Syntax treats of the function of words when joined together as parts of the sentence; Prosody of their arrangement in metrical composition.
NOTE 1: The Latin alphabet was borrowed in very early times from a Greek alphabet (though not from that most familiar to us) and did not at first contain the letters G and Y. It consisted of capital letters only, and the small letters with which we are familiar did not come into general use until the close of the eighth century of our era.
NOTE 2: The Latin names of the consonants were as follows:---B, be (pronounced bay); C, ce (pronounced kay); D, de (day); F, ef; G, ge (gay); H, ha; K, ka; L, el; M, em; N, en; P, pe (pay); Q, qu, (koo); R, er; S, es; T, te (tay); X, ix; Z, zeta (the Greek name, pronounced dzayta). The sound of each vowel was used as its name.
a. The character C originally meant G, a value always retained in the abbreviations C. (for Gaius) and Cn. (for Gnaeus).
NOTE: In early Latin C came also to be used for K, and K disappeared except before a in a few words, as Kal. (Kalendae), Karthago. Thus there was no distinction in writing between the sounds of g and k. Later this defect was remedied by forming (from C) the new character G. This took the alphabetic place formerly occupied by Z, which had gone out of use. In Cicero's time (see N. D. ii. 93), Y (originally a form of V) and Z were introduced from the ordinary Greek alphabet to represent sounds in words derived from the Greek, and they were put at the end of the Latin alphabet.
b. I and V were used both as vowels and as consonants (See sec. 5).
NOTE: V originally denoted the vowel sound u (oo), and F stood for the sound of our consonant w. When F acquired the value of our f, V came to be used for the sound of W as well as for the vowel u.
In this book I is used for both vowel and consonant i, U for vowel u, and V for consonant u:---ius, vir, iuvenis.