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Grammar book for the Romance languages | ||
Tags: Grammar books | Romance Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6527 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 1 of 15 14 October 2009 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry if this has been discused before. Can anyone recomend a good book which contrasts the grammer of (at least) French, Spanish Portuguese and Italian? I'm looking for a discussion of the use of tenses, the use of relative clauses etc. in down to earth language. I want to get these ideas straight in my head with an aim to speaking better.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 15 14 October 2009 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't think that this topic could be explained in a way that appeals to laymen. Comparative linguistics is rather specialized and usually too elaborate or specialized for most casual learners. I know of two books out there that describe the Romance languages and are meant for students of linguistics or non-specialists who have at least some interest in comparative linguistics. Both books are called "The Romance Languages". One is published by Routledge and the other is published by Cambridge University Press. The book from Routledge is part of its series "Language Family Descriptions" and edited by Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent. It has a chapter about the Romance languages in general and then a chapter for each of Latin and the modern Romance languages. Each chapter is written by a specialist of that language. Discussions involving comparative Romance linguistics are interspersed in each of the chapters (usually in the form of showing the evolution of some form attested in Latin into something used in the relevant modern language) The second from Cambridge University Press is written by Rebecca Posner and goes more into the similarities and differences between the modern languages while eschewing the arrangement of allotting one chapter for each language. This book may be more of what you're looking for even though the material is considered esoteric by a lot of people. By the way, there is an older book called "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts" by Peter Boyd-Bowman which shows how sounds in Latin evolved into their forms in French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. For some reason, the author excluded Romanian in his analysis (!) (BTW this may be symptomatic of the intellectual Western-only myopia that can unfortunately affect Western European or North American scholars) Apart from that glaring omission, the book may be of interest to you since it shows the evolution of the Latin sounds to ones in the major western Romance languages in a concise manner. All three books are viewable on Google Books with most pages being accessible and so you can browse through most of the contents before buying. You should be able to find each of these books on Amazon in their paperback versions for reasonable prices. I don't own any of these books, but browsing through the contents on Google Books leads me to think that you could enjoy them. I do own from Routledge's series "The Slavonic Languages" and "The Uralic Languages" and in general I'm impressed by their level of detail when describing the individual languages. "The Romance Languages" from Routledge should be thus equally impressive. Yet the version from Cambridge University may be more suitable for your purposes as mentioned above (to boot, Cambridge's book is often cheaper than Routledge's). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5700 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 15 14 October 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I read the Posner book earlier this year and did not find it especially helpful from a learner's point of view but it was sort of fun to read and not especially technical (for people inclined to pick up such a book in the first place). [redacted per next comment]
Somewhere in the universe, once upon a time, there was a book called A Comparative Grammar of French, Spanish Portuguese and Italian by Edwin A. Notley, but I have never seen it (ISBN 10: 0849016525)--the review blurb at the Nation says it is geared to helping learners, but I didn't purchase the full review. Please post information if you do find it. Edited by pfwillard on 14 October 2009 at 11:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 15 14 October 2009 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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$300? I just saw used paperback copies of Harris' book going for about $35 US on Amazon.com Marketplace (what I saw was the edition from 1990 - the newer edition from 1997 is in hardcover, more expensive and has five more pages than the one from 1990).
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| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6527 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 5 of 15 15 October 2009 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I took a quick look at Posner's book, but I don't think it was really what I was looking for. For instance, you say 'Je crois que tu fais une erreur' in French, but 'credo che tu faccia un errore' (subjunctive) in Italian. I wanted a short book thats contrasts these differences, or at least gives clues about what to look out for (the role of the subjunctive varies slightly between French and Italian..) without trying to justify them by historical or social reasons. I've not seen such a book before, maybe as Chung said, languages can't really be contrasted in a way useful for a general learner.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 15 15 October 2009 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
Well, that's not really true. It's just that publishers can make more money catering to amateurs who're full of enthusiasm at the start their studies rather than to the relatively few people who already have knowledge of or interest the target language's kindred tongues. By that point, those more serious people can get by with reading the relevant parts of a text on comparative linguistics for that family (although this isn't a perfect a solution - some days, I wish that I had a less technical text that deals with comparative Slavonic linguistics with an eye to contemporary usage rather than describing sound changes and reconstructions in the proto-language). The nearest thing that you may still like and that I've seen deals with two languages that are closely-related. In Slovakia, I remember seeing a textbook called "Slovenčina a čeština - Synchrónne porovnanie s cvičeniami" (Slovak and Czech - Synchronus Comparison with Exercises). Basically it is meant for Slovak students to solidify their passive knowledge of Czech, all along the way alerting them to the similarities and differences between the two languages. It's likely that there are textbooks or reference guides for Spanish that are published in French for example, but that allow users to compare the two languages' structures. Have you tried looking for something similar in Romance languages that you're fluent in? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7145 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 7 of 15 15 October 2009 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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It looks as if the Notley book appeared in London in 1868, and seems to be exceedingly rare. I suspect a reprint might have been planned at one point, although I doubt it was actually reprinted or it would be possible to find copies either for sale or in libraries.
A similar book, "A Comparative Practical Grammar of French, Spanish & Italian", by Oliver Heatwole, has been mentioned earlier in the forums; it's likewise very hard to come by these days. Finally, there is, or was, Frederick Agard, "A Course in Romance Linguistics. Volume 1: A Synchronic View. A comparative/contrastive Description of Five Modern Romance languages-- French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian Roumanian, in Terms of an Underlying Grammar Manifested in Surface Similarities.." I've never seen it, and so don't know if it's what your're looking for. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 8 of 15 15 October 2009 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||
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There's a fascinating book by Mario Pei called something like 'Languages Of The World' - a thick tome - that includes many language overviews. I got a copy fairly cheaply years ago. That might help.
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