Preparing for the “Q”:
This exam will have two parts:
- The first part will be a two-hour translation exam based on the Greek and Latin Linguistics reading list. One hour of the exam will be devoted to Greek translation and one hour to Latin translation. This exam is intended to assess your progress towards mastery of Greek and Latin morphology and syntax.
- The second part of the Q exam will be a two-hour written exam on the elements of Greek and Latin historical grammar. This exam will offer you a choice of six essay questions from which you will choose three to answer. You should prepare for this exam by reading and mastering the selections listed below from Michael Weiss’s Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin (2020) and Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Greek (ms. Cornell 2020) and from Benjamin W. Fortson’s Proto-Indo-European Language and Culture (2013). In order to progress in the field of Greek and Latin Linguistics you must have a firm and active knowledge of this material. Firm and active knowledge means you understand the basic principles of synchronic and diachronic linguistic analysis and argumentation and that you can explain how the Greek and Latin languages have the forms that they do.
Immediately after the Q Exam, the special committee will meet with each student in the concentration for a brief (ca. one-hour) discussion of a research of a paper that the student will have written for a course taken in the first two years. This paper should demonstrate first-hand involvement with the data, the ability to frame a research question, and thoughtful application of the methods learned.
You should not define your learning in your first two years as limited to preparing on the basis of the above materials for the Q exam. You should read on your own in the secondary literature, both recent articles and books and the classics of the field—many written in German, French or Italian. Your committee will be happy to point you in the right direction. You should join existing discussion groups or found groups of your own tailored to your interests. You should seek out both your colleagues and your professors to discuss questions of Greek and Latin linguistics. Learning in graduate school is a collaborative process!
Greek
Aeschylus: Agamemnon
Aristophanes: Frogs
Euripides: Bacchae
Gorgias: Helen
Hellenistic: Selected poems [Callimachus, Apollonius, Moschus & epigrams in N.
Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) & Theocritus Idylls I & VII]
Hesiod: Theogony
Herodotus: I
Homer: Iliad XIX-XXIV, Odyssey XIX-XXIV
Lyrici: Selected poems [The selections in G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford
2001), except the tragic excerpts, & Archilochus in D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry
(Bristol 1982)]
Pindar: O. I-III, P. I & III, Is. I
Plato: Symposium
Sophocles: OT
Thucydides: II
Xenophon: Apology, Symposium
Selection of Inscriptions (from Buck, Greek Dialects)
Latin
Appendix Probi
Archaic: Selected fragments [Accius Brutus; Andronicus Odusia; Caecilius Plocium; Cato De falsis pugnis; Ennius Ann . I, Andromache, Medea; Epitaphs of the Scipios; Salian & Arval Hymns; Lucilius virtus fr.; Lutatius Catulus epigrams, Naevius Bellum Poenicum, Tarentilla, Cum Metellis Altercatio; Pacuvius fortuna & profectio fr., Porcius Licinius epigrams, Valerius Aedituus epigrams, Volcacius Sedigitus iudicium comicorum fr.]
Catullus: 1-68
Caesar: Bellum Civile III
Cato: De agricultura 141
Cicero: In Catilinam I & III, Pro Caelio, Selected letters [3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 29, 45, 48, 51, 52, 63, 66, 70, 73 in Shackleton Bailey, Cicero: Select Letters (Cambridge 1980) = A1.2, A1.13, F14.2, A4.5, F5.12, F7.1, F7.5, F7.6, A5.1, F13.1, F15.1, F15.6, F9.18, F9.26, F7.26, F5.16, A13.52, A14.1, A15.11, A16.6].
Gospel of John 6.51-69 [Vetus Latina codex Palatinus, from J.N. Adams, Anthology of
Informal Latin 428–444]
Horace: Ars Poetica, Odes III
Livy: I
Lucretius: III
Petronius: Cena
Plautus: Pseudolus
Sallust: Catilina
Tacitus: Agricola
Terence: Eunuchus
Virgil: Aeneid VII-XII
Secondary Literature
Fortson, Benjamin. 2009. Indo-European Language and Culture. 2nd edition. Blackwell. Malden MA.
Weiss, Michael. 2017. Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin. 2nd edition. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press.
Weiss, Michael. Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Ancient Greek (manuscript).