Uh...yeah...word order

Latin Learning Latin
1

Word order is a strange thing. I was talking to some one last night who recommended that I randomly mix around the words in a latin sentence. But I feel, I have neither the right nor the knowledge to do so at the moment. There should be a whole book dedicated to this, is there one?

For there are many occasions on which I don’t know whether a word because it for example is first after the relative pronoun has strongest emphasis, as all I am given is “Pulchras amat is puellas”, and even then I don’t know which is more emphatic, amat or is.

I mean, for God’s sake I don’t even know that which is a clause, or a subordinate clause etc.

That’s another problem in addition to my lack of vocabulary :slight_smile:

2

I just guess, don’t ask me… :unamused:

Lol, word order in Latin is often sort of random, but in general the verb will be somewhere near the end, though I’ve translated nothing but poetry in over one and a half years… and well, poets are probably worst when it comes to word order.
The context should help you, though.

3

Word order isn’t a random at all!
When Latin writers put a word on a (at first sight) silly place, it has a meaning, certainly in poetry! Also in prose there was a metrical scheme to follow at the end of a period. That’s a very important thing also, the clausulae! Some combinations sounded better for the Roman ear, like ‘esse videatur’ etc. This is only one thing, emphasis is an other. There are alse words with a standard position, like nam, enim, etc.

There are to many things to mention. But there are books about it! You can find a little bit in Latin grammars, but there are also specific books about the subject: Ernout, L’ordre des mots dans la phrase Latine, 3 + 1 vols. But this is in Frensh and also very old. I think there are English books about that too. But I can’t remember them right now. But I will mention them here a little later, if I don’ forget, lol.

Moerus.

4

I promised a selected bibliography about this topic, well here it is:

Adams, J. N., “A Typological Approach to Latin Word Order,” Indogermanische Forschungen 81 (1976) 70-99.

Bolt, Henricus, De liberiore linguae graecae et latinae collocatione verborum capita selecta (Diss. Goettingen 1884)

Conrad, Carl, “Traditional Patterns of Word Order in Latin Epic from Enius to Vergil,” HSCP 69 (1965) 195-258

Cunningham, Maurice P., “Latin Word Order: The Status Quaestionis,” Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society (1954) 360-370.

Linde, P., “Die Stellung des Verbs in der lateinischen Prosa,” Glotta 12 (1923) 153-178.

Marouzeau, Jusle, Place du pronom personnel sujet en latin (Paris 1907)

-----, L’ordre des mots dans la phrase latin, 3 voll.

I: Les groupes nominaux (Paris 1922)

II: Les verbe (Paris 1938)

III: Les articulations de l’enonce (Paris 1949)

-----, L’Ordre des mots en latin, Volume complementaire avec exercises d’application et bibliographie (Paris 1949)

[In my previous post I said this work was from Ernout, but it is from Marouzeau. Mea culpa!]

Panhuis, Dirk G. J., The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence: A Study of Latin Word Order (Amsterdam, Philadelphia 1982)

I hope this is a little helpful,
If it isn’t maybe I will write somethoing about it, but now tempus mihi non est, ignoscite mihi,

Valete,
Moerus.