The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek

The first major complete grammar of Classical Greek in the English language in nearly a century put together by a team of eminent scholars. What is not to love? This grammar is a great addition to the Greek learner or scholar's library. What makes it worthwhile to get, even when there are good English language Greek grammars that are in public domain? Here are a few of its best features:1. Is up to date on areas where Greek scholarship has substantially advanced in the past 100 years. Some obvious areas are its description of the verbal system as well as the description of particles/conjunctions. There have been major advances in these areas which the traditional grammars don't reflect. You won't even find discourse cohesion discussed as a specific topic in Smyth. Here you have a couple chapters unpacking it.2. It uses language which is more familiar to the modern student. Many grammatical categories and descriptions in older reference grammars are strongly beholden to the Latin tradition. You don't need to know Latin to understand the grammar terms in this book, but basic exposure to linguistics will be rather helpful. This reflects one of the major directions of current Greek study: engagement with Greek from the viewpoint(s) of linguistics, rather than classical studies as such. Often times the way they discuss different topics in this grammar will be more familiar to people who have cut their teeth on some measure of modern linguistics. That being said, they do not attempt to do a wholesale description of Classical Greek in terms of any particular modern linguistic theory. Most of the categories of traditional Greek grammar are maintained, e.g. you'll find a chapter on "the Aorist" rather than on the "perfective aspect". This makes the grammar a comfortable go-between: it is a good introduction to contemporary areas of interest in Greek studies as well as understandable from the terms of traditional categories.3. Its pages are huge and its text is clean and easy to read. Compared to most reference grammars, this one is extremely reader friendly. It is not packed full of small font with even smaller font notes, but is readable, clean, and makes successful use of bold and italic text for emphasis. No squinting required to make out a paradigm.4. It majors on the majors and generally leaves out the minors. By comparison, this grammar gives a lot less information than what is in Smyth, but that is often really nice for just finding what is important to find for most reading. Rather than discussing the different dialect variations of the verb paradigms, or a detailing peculiar usages by the dozen, it sticks to the main meanings and usages. Of course, this means that it is not an exhaustive reference grammar; but it is also not an exhausting one.5. Extensive cross-references between sections enables easy navigation. The index is not as robust as one might like it to be, especially if you are used to using a grammar like Smyth, but the cross-referencing largely makes up for that.This has become my first stop grammar for Ancient Greek. But, certainly don't get rid of Smyth. Smyth still covers many facets of the Greek language which this one does not. There are whole categories of meaning touched on in Smyth, or various other reference grammars, that don't appear here. But, this grammar will put the reader in a much better position to understand what is going on in current Greek study than Smyth will, and it will also help those who are simply learning and need a solid grammar.

When I read the previous reviewer's complaint about the shoddy quality of her copy's binding, my excitement at finally getting to see this book, intended as a replacement of the venerable Greek Grammar by Herbert Weir Smyth, turned somewhat to anxiety. Would my copy also come with loose pages like hers? I am happy to report that so far the binding seems intact, with no signs of imminent disintegration. It would seem that she, unfortunately, received a defective copy (going by my admittedly small sample size). At over 800 pages--a lot for any paperback binding--it does remain to be seen how well the volume holds up to frequent reference use, but I intend to treat mine as gently as possible and hope for the best.As far as the contents of the book go, I have not had more than one evening to flip through it, but it does seem to be a solid (pun intended) update and supplement for Smyth. There did not appear to be much comparative material, as I had thought there might be, but Andrew L. Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin fills that niche excellently already. (Also, this grammar is intended for undergraduate classes and as a review, and one can only imagine the strain a hypothetical hundred more pages of such material would put on the binding.) One other thing I noticed in my cursory examination is that it does not try to replicate one of my favorite features of Smyth's grammar, namely the List of Grammatical and Rhetorical Figures, replete with helpful examples, so I would not go so far as to say CGCG will supplant that trusty reference work.

The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (CGCG) sets out to be the new standard for classical Greek, accessible to students and scholars alike? Does it succeed? Yes, overall.Smyth (for American audiences) will still be helpful for quick referencing phonology and literary techniques.However, CGCG is truly set up to replace Smyth in almost all ways.PROS1) It is up-to-date on the latest research in Greek Linguistics2) It has sections on Coherence, Particles, and Word Order that Smyth and all other basic grammars were lacking or missing a theoretical framework for (this will help those who were confused by the lack of structure in Denniston's "Greek Particles"3) It has a very nice format.4) It is written by some of the most prominent Ancient Greek linguists (and grammarians) of our time.5) It is pedagogically oriented. That means that it is not too bound to using the language of theoretical linguistics, but it does try to update terminology in appropriate places.CONS:1) It will take getting used to the change in format.2) It is sometimes hard to find familiar terminology in the index.Overall, I highly recommend this grammar and think that everyone should get a copy as soon as possible!

Even if you're not a Classicist, this book is helpful to understand Greek grammar. It's clearly written and up to date, incorporating material from the ongoing linguistic discussions (eg, aspect). The pages and fonts are well arranged, making it so much easier on the eyes than Smyth's older grammar.The paperback version is perfect bound (glued) but the book opens up and lays relatively flat. I think it will hold up fine as a reference. I don't know if the hardcover is glued as well. If it is, this is definitely a better deal.

I had studied Koine Greek in college and seminary, which I daily use, but I wanted to learn Attic Greek. This book was well designed for me to learn Attic. I highly recommend it.

I haven't read all of it, but welcome a fresh approach to classical/Attic Greek grammar.

It's very detailed and complete.

All great