Heavy Construction

The Allen and Greenough is still under construction; so some links may not work quite the way you would expect.

PREFACE TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION.

THE document that you are reading is a transcription of the classic grammar textbook, Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar, into a machine-readable hypertext. As little variation was made from the original layout and content of the original as was allowed by the necessity of keeping a working printable edition and an electronic hypertext edition at once; so the reader familiar with the original will find himself at home reading the current version.

Although I have tried to keep the text as true to the original as I was able, I have doubtless made many errors, especially in the matter of breves and macrons (which do not appear at all in the hypertext, due to what I would consider to be a deficiency in the HTML language), and font selection; nevertheless, if any error in the work is brought to my attention, I will happily repair it at once.

For the most part, the documents put out by the Libellus project are Public Domain; however, since this particular work posed somewhat more of a challenge in its production, the conditions for redistribution of this work are slightly more restrictive. This version of this work (electronic or printed) is copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2002, Konrad Schroder; it may be redistributed, in whole or in part, with or without modification, for non-profit purposes only provided that all redistributions display the above copyright notice and these conditions for redistribution. If you have other plans for this work, please contact me.

Since this is a work in progress, you are certainly welcome to make your own contribution to it: simply send me mail at perseant@u.washington.edu; also, ``view source'' on the table of contents and take a look at everything that's commented out; if you're looking for something to do, you can pretty much take your pick from what's listed there.

Acknowledgements.

Many thanks go to the people who have made the production of this work possible: To Pierre MacKay of the UW Classics Dept., for his all but donation of the Sun-2 that currently houses the HTML version of this document; to Tom Ridgeway and Joan Bishop of the UW's Humanities and Arts Computing Center, for their advice and the use of their scanner; to the UW's Center for Social Sciences Computing and Research, for the use of their scanning facilities; and to my housemates Jason Black, Wim Lewis, and Jared Reisinger for their advice and for their patience while I wasted many, many cycles on their workstations.



March 18, 1995. to 1pt

PREFACE.

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 coöperated 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.