Latin Grammar - Word Order

Word Order

Latin allows a very flexible word order because of its inflectional syntax. Ordinary prose tended to follow the pattern of Subject, Indirect Object, Direct Object, Adverbial Words or Phrases, Verb (SIDAV). Any extra, though subordinate verbs, are placed before the main verb; for example infinitives. Adjectives and participles usually directly followed nouns, unless they were adjectives of beauty, size, quantity, goodness, or truth, in which case they preceded the noun being modified. Relative clauses were commonly placed after the antecedent which the relative pronoun describes. While these patterns of word order were the most frequent in Classical Latin prose, they are frequently varied; and it is important to recall that there is virtually no evidence surviving that suggests the word order of colloquial Latin (see Vulgar Latin).

In poetry, however, word order was often changed for the sake of the meter, for which vowel quantity (short vowels vs. long vowels and diphthongs) and consonant clusters, not rhyme and word stress, governed the patterns. It is, however, important to bear in mind that poets in the Roman world wrote primarily for the ear, not for the eye; many premiered their work in recitation for an audience. Hence, variations in word order served a rhetorical, as well as a metrical purpose; they certainly did not prevent understanding. In Virgil's Eclogues, for example, he writes, Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori!: Love conquers all, let us yield to love!. The words omnia (all), amor (love) and amori (to love) are thrown into relief by their unusual position in their respective phrases. The meter here is dactylic hexameter, in which Virgil composed The Aeneid, Rome's national epic.

The ending of the common Roman name Marcus is different in each of the following examples due to its grammatical usage in that sentence. The ordering in the following sentences would be perfectly correct in Latin and no doubt understood with clarity, despite the fact that in English they are awkward at best and senseless at worst:

• Marcus ferit Corneliam: Marcus hits Cornelia. (subject–verb–object)
• Marcus Corneliam ferit: Marcus Cornelia hits. (subject–object–verb)

• Cornelia dedit Marco donum: Cornelia has given Marcus a gift. (subject–verb–indirect object–direct object)
• Cornelia Marco donum dedit: Cornelia (to) Marcus a gift has given. (subject–indirect object–direct object–verb)