Word ordering

[Augustus Secondus]

In general, how should words be ordered in a Latin sentence?
(id est: how would the nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. order in a sentence)

Benigne

[benissimus]

In general, how should words be ordered in a Latin sentence?
(id est: how would the nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. order in a sentence)

Most often the order is 1) subject, 2) direct object, and 3)verb. Adjectives can precede or follow their agreeing nouns, but quantitative and numeral adjectives usually precede. Adverbs tend to come before the verb they modify, and non, in contrast to English "not", hardly ever follows the verb to which it applies. Indirect objects usually go just before or just after the direct object. Ablatives and prepositions usually go at the beginning of the sentence or in the adverb position. There are minor rules regarding certain types of clauses, such as interrogative pronouns and adjectives usually coming first or close to first (if they are in the main clause), relative clauses being preceded by the antecedent, etc.

Not a single one of these rules is always enforced and indeed they are not even a standard. Emphasis freely changes word order (you can't even really say what the "standard word order" is since there is no real need to even have one) and of course in poetry you may as well defenestrate most patterns of word order. It would also depend on which time period and author you wish to imitate in your writing (Latin over the course of a couple hundred years is not one language but a series of very similar languages). I believe some of the grammars on Textkit have more extensive discussions on word order.