Anyone who has studied asyndeton in Latin will have experienced how enormously arduous it is to research this phenomenon because of the difficulty to collect the material. Without the ability to search in digitised databases due to the absence of the coordinator, there is no other way of collecting data than reading the texts directly. It is this lack of material that this book aims to resolve. The book focuses on asyndeton bimembre, that is, pairs of functional members (noun phrases, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, clauses etc.) set in a coordinative relationship without a conjunction. Despite A.'s caveats – ‘I have set out to collect every case of asyndeton bimembre in the texts consulted, but inevitably some omissions will have been made … but the evidence presented is I hope tolerably complete’ (p. xxv) – the result is a vast collection of cases of asyndeton bimembre from texts spanning a broad time frame and a selection of different genres. Partial comparisons are also offered with Greek, Umbrian and Vedic, and between authors. An indication of the sheer magnitude of works included in A.'s corpus can be seen in the chapters on Plautus, which covers his entire output (on the basis of W. de Melo's Loeb edition), and on Cicero, which has been prepared after reviewing more than 1,000 pages of the OCT editions (p. 405). If we add to this volume of data A.'s philological finesse and the depth of his analysis, we will immediately understand that this book is of enormous value.
The work is divided into two different sections. The first, which A. calls ‘typological’, defines the concept of asyndeton and other theoretical aspects. The second section, which A. names ‘literary’, contains a detailed description of each of the types classified in the authors reviewed. These two sections are conceived as almost two different works (p. xxvi): the first, the ‘typological’ one, is based on the material found in the second one; the second, the ‘literary’ section, presents in great detail the cases classified in the first section and is intended to be consulted rather than read in full. (‘I am aware that anyone looking at the literary chapters is likely to be not so much reading the whole as consulting a chapter on a particular author or passage. I have decided to make each of these chapters as self-contained as possible’, p. xxvi). However, the multiple and very useful cross-references between both sections make them complement each other perfectly.
The ‘typological’ section is divided into four parts. The first part comprises a five-chapter introduction, which discusses general issues, including the definition of asyndeton and its types, which cases of asyndeton are dubious and why, and the proposed effects of asyndeton. Here, A. provides a thorough review of the generalisations and clichés about asyndeton in secondary sources that turn out to be inaccurate or downright false in the light of the data he collects (especially in Chapters 3–5). Part 2 is devoted to the presentation of ‘Grammatical Types’ (Chapters 6–12), which lists the pairs that have a common (usually morphological) feature in one or both members (e.g. pairs with negative prefix, simple + compound, verbs in the same or different tense and mood etc.). The many details contained in this group are well summarised in a ‘Recapitulation’ (pp. 143–5). Part 3 (‘Semantic Types’, Chapters 13–15) deals with the more or less systematic semantic features that can be recognised in asyndetic pairs (mainly pairs of opposites of different types). Part 4 (‘Structures’, Chapters 16–21) is devoted to the structures in which these pairs appear (e.g. in words of ascending length, in correlative distributions, in lists, in accumulations of asyndetic pairs etc.).
Some chapters could perhaps be more concise. A couple of examples: Chapter 2, on adjectives and other combinations of words modifying each other, contains unnecessary material (the title of the chapter, ‘“Asyndeta” That May Not Be Asyndeta: Roles of Adjectives; Appositional Compounds; and “Asyndetic Hendiadys”’, indicates that A. is aware of this). For the section on adjectives, the functional classes proposed by R. Risselada (Glotta 62 [1984], 202–31) would have been useful to clarify which combinations of adjectives could be considered as asyndetic and which could not and why. The same applies to the terms that modify each other (pp. 44–52). Despite the dubious interpretation, this material is included because, according to A., ‘they could also be rewritten with a coordinator, and are thus asyndetic’ (p. 54). If Risselada is right, this is not the case for all of them. A similar situation can be found in Chapter 20, especially in the section on the conjunct hyperbaton, which has a tenuous link with the problem at hand.
The second section (Part 5, ‘Genres and Texts’) analyses different corpora, seeking to combine chronology and literary genres: laws and prayers; Plautus; Virgil (and Homer) and early high-style poetry; Cicero; Catullus; Caesar's Bellum Civile; Horace, with a selected corpus from Pindar; the annalists, Sallust and Tacitus; and Livy. These chapters, in addition to the abundant material covered, provide different types of commentary depending on the features that characterise the pair, such as its representation in the different genres or the secondary sources available (e.g. the chapter on Bellum civile is devoted to textual criticism based on C. Damon, Caii Iuli Caesaris Commentariorum libri III de Bello Ciuili [2015]).
Part 6, ‘Conclusions’, summarises the trends observed and the refuted opinions and comments of secondary sources. In addition, there are fourteen pages of bibliography (more philological [c. 90%] than linguistic [c. 10%]), an impressive subject index, an index of selected pairs and longer sequences (with more than 1,100 items) and a selected index locorum.
The book is not always easy to read because of the immense amount of different material it covers, but reading can be guided by an excellent summary in the six-page preface and the detailed table of contents. The general conclusion that emerges is that it is impossible to generalise about asyndeton for Latin as a whole, except that it is a coordination procedure that coexists for a long time with others, it is of variable presence in genres, and it is used depending on the personal taste of authors, trends etc.
The work contains much more description than linguistic interpretation. The philological analysis is strong, but a study of the material from a pragmatic point of view seems essential in order to explain some of the trends observed (e.g. why pairs of imperatives are so frequent, structures with anaphora etc.). It is also surprising that no mention is made of metrics, despite the fact that several verse genres are covered, since this is an aspect that may be relevant to the use of asyndeton.
This book makes two significant contributions to the discipline: first, it provides philologists and linguists with an immense and extraordinary collection of material accompanied by a wonderful philological commentary, which will allow in-depth linguistic and even metrical study that has not been possible until now. Secondly, it provides textual criticism with criteria for refining the texts. The book is a source of ideas; it is immensely interesting. It is a real pity that it is A.'s last book to be published (requiescat in pace).
