A Latin Grammar

Rating:
Summary: A clear, concise, and very handy Latin Grammar
Review: Intelligently organized and formatted, this Latin grammar is an excellent resource for beginning and intermediate Latin students. In his preface, the author states that he intends the book to supersede the classic Latin grammar written by Benjamin Hall Kennedy. I'm not familiar with that work, apparently a mainstay of British Latin students for generations. My own acquaintance is with the grammars of American Latinists such as Bennett, Gildersleeve, Hadley, and Allen & Greenough.

The author has wisely chosen to leave out cumbersome, needless detail. Instead, clarity and simplicity are everywhere in abundance. Each section describing a specific grammatical point begins with examples of the construction -- if an analogue exists -- in English. In an age where students' knowledge of basic English grammar can no longer be taken for granted, this is a useful feature indeed.

Arguably the best feature of the book is the way in which grammar points are illustrated by short, easily comprehensible Latin sentences in bold type, with accompanying translations. To his credit, Morwood has studiously avoided the approach found in grammars of yesteryear, viz., using much longer sentences pulled out of classical Latin authors such as Caesar or Cicero to illustrate even the most simple grammatical rule.

The value of the book for teachers is enhanced by the inclusion in each chapter of practice sentences in both Latin (some of which are from classical authors) and English. Separate English-Latin and Latin-English vocabularies at the back of the book are designed to accompany the practice exercises. There is also a "reference grammar" overview of the verb system, bordered with a grey margin for ease of reference. The book also contains a very handy Glossary of Grammatical Terms.

In all, a splendid little book of enormous utility; highly recommended for those seeking a clearly written and easy to understand treatment of basic Latin grammar.

Rating:
Summary: An Accessible Guide to the Latin Language
Review: The Latin grammar by James Morwood is a smoothly flowing, accessible guide to the Latin language, providing many short sentence examples and explaining nouns and noun inflection, adjectives, adverbs, verb conjugation, and sentence construction in depth. The readability is excellent, and the information presented is easily utilized.

Rating:
Summary: Very good.
Review: This book is directed mostly at more advanced students of language whom have a grasp of basic language vocabulary
(e.g. verbs, declensions, cases, tenses, etc.). It is none the less very helpful to the begginer student as well because of its lexicon of language words at the beggining of the book with in-depth descriptions of each case, tense, declension, and so on.

Rating:
Summary: Very good.
Review: This book is directed mostly at more advanced students of language whom have a grasp of basic language vocabulary
(e.g. verbs, declensions, cases, tenses, etc.). It is none the less very helpful to the begginer student as well because of its lexicon of language words at the beggining of the book with in-depth descriptions of each case, tense, declension, and so on.