Latin Word Order - Wheelock's Latin Ch.1

[NateD26]

[Jason & I study Latin together from Wheelock's Latin, and since we've not received
any answer yet on that section, we've decided to copy it over here.]

In the first chapter, we’ve already run into a question of word order. Number 18 is an English to Greek sentence. It is You ought not to praise me.

We’ve come up with:

Nōn mē dēbēs laudāre.

Nōn dēbēs mē laudāre.

Mē laudāre nōn dēbēs.

Are either of these possible? Is there a difference? Does it matter?

The text itself doesn’t give an example of dēbeō with both a complementary verb and a direct object.

We're leaning toward nōn dēbēs mē laudāre, by the way. Is that correct?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[adrianus]

I would say (for what that's worth) that they can all be said, and the only difference is one of emphasis, which can vary anyway between periods or given a particular context.
Quodlibet eorum dici potest, meâ humili sententiâ. Emphasis sola mutat, quae mutat obiter per aeva et per contextum.

[cb]

hi, adrian and i chatted about this issue before.

see viewtopic.php?t=8738 .

according to the latin word order book i referred to there, personal pronouns tend to come at the beginning of infinitive phrases (see rule 2 in that post) and so the formulation you are leaning towards would fit that rule 2.

but see adrian's good arguments in that thread against my formulation of general rules for personal and reflexive pronoun positioning.

so to answer your question "is this correct?" is tricky, but if you asked "is my word ordering worse than other possible word orderings for sentence?" i'd say no.

cheers, chad