A Lexicon Of Xenophons Anabasis

Author : Alpheus Crosby
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781493795215
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (952 download)

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Download or read book A Lexicon of Xenophon's Anabasis written by Alpheus Crosby and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An excerpt from the beginning of the PREFACE: Shall the student commence the reading of Greek with a general or a special lexicon 1 If the former is chosen, he must expect, 1. Greater labor in finding words. The time required for finding a word in a lexicon is nearly in the direct ratio of the size of the book, and the number of words in its list. The larger the book, the more pages must be turned over, or the more matter scrutinized on a page, - commonly both; and the longer its list, the more words must be looked at, before the right one catches the eye. This would seem quite too obvious for remark, were not its disregard so common, and so costly of time to the learner. 2. More labor in finding the required signification. How much time is often painfully spent in looking through a long article, - where various meanings, illustrative examples, translations of these examples, references, and remarks are commingled, - before the eye lights upon an appropriate signification; and even after this, not unfrequently, how much in addition, before the different admissible meanings can be brought together and compared for the selection of the best! 3. A difficulty in finding some words at all. This difficulty occurs in the Greek far more than in most languages, from the many euphonic and emphatic changes in its inflection, from crasis, and especially from the various forms of the augment and reduplication, which often render it uncertain even under what letter the search should be commenced. The considerations first presented have also a special application to the Greek, from the copiousness of its vocabulary, and from the variety of form and use which its words obtained through so many centuries, dialects, and kinds of literature. If relief from these disadvantages is sought in the use of an abridged general lexicon, then a more serious evil is often substituted, - the absence of what is needed, in the place of labor in finding it. The great use which is wisely made of Xenophon's Anabasis in elementary study seems to entitle it to all the advantages which a special lexicon can confer. In more advanced reading, when comparatively few words present themselves as strangers, and a more comprehensive view of the language is sought, there can, of course, be no adequate substitute for a good general lexicon. Proper names are here treated with more fulness than has been usual in works of this kind; chiefly by giving such information as the student might desire in addition to that which the text itself furnishes. The modern identifications of ancient places are in part quite certain; but there are some in respect to which the most painstaking and, reliable travellers and geographers so differ, that it must simply be understood that that is here given which seemed most probable after the comparison of different authorities. A similar remark should be made respecting dates; in which there is this especial element of difference, that the Greek Olympic year was divided about equally between two years of our chronology....