More recently, taking advantage of computerised texts, three major works have been published on Latin word order, one by the American scholars Andrew Devine and Laurence Stephens (2006),[3] and two (adopting a different approach) by the Czech scholar Olga Spevak (2010 and 2014).
The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man');[5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common).
[7] There are however certain constraints; for example, in prose a monosyllabic preposition such as in 'in' generally precedes its noun (e.g. in Italiā 'in Italy').
One, represented by Devine and Stephens (2006), argues from the point of view of generative grammar, and maintains that Latin prose has a basic underlying "neutral" word order, from which authors deviate for reasons of emphasis, topicalisation, rhythm, and so on.
Rejecting the idea that there is a basic word order, this approach seeks to explain word order in terms of pragmatic factors, such as topic and focus, and semantic ones (1st person before 2nd, human before animals or things, agent before patient, etc.).
[14] For example, in the opening sentence of Caesar's Gallic War, the usual order[9] of numeral and noun trīs partīs 'three parts' is reversed to emphasise the number 'three': Another technique used by Latin authors is to separate a phrase and put another word or phrase in the middle, for example: The technical term for this kind of separation is "hyperbaton" (Greek for 'stepping over'); it is described by Devine and Stephens as 'perhaps the most distinctively alien feature of Latin word order'.
In the following example from Cicero, the splitting of cruentum 'blood-stained' and pugiōnem 'dagger' creates a dramatic effect:[20] Considerations of rhythm and elegance also play a part in Latin word order.
[22] For example, Pliny the Younger begins a letter as follows: In this sentence, the object (magnum prōventum poētārum 'a great crop of poets') has been brought forward to highlight it.
Words referring to things can be any of the three genders, for example mōns 'mountain' (masculine), arbor 'tree' (feminine), nōmen 'name' (neuter).
Case endings of a similar kind are also found in other languages, such as Ancient and Modern Greek, German, Russian, Hungarian, Finnish, Sanskrit, Armenian, Classical Arabic, and Turkish.
Another case is the locative, which is used mostly with the names of cities (e.g. Rōmae 'in Rome') and a very limited number of ordinary nouns (e.g. domī 'at home').
[48] Frequently, to make the meaning more precise, a noun in the accusative or ablative is preceded by a preposition such as in 'in, into', ad 'to', cum 'with', or ex 'out of'.
For example: However, when the meaning of an accusative or an ablative is clear (for example Canusium (Acc) 'to Canusium', nāvibus (Abl) 'with the ships', posterō diē (Abl) 'on the following day'), the case ending alone is sufficient to give the meaning.
Sometimes when the noun has an adjective it is placed before the preposition for emphasis, e.g. magnā cum cūrā 'with great care' (Cicero),[54] but this is not an invariable rule.
[55] Occasionally also the opposite order (noun-preposition-adjective) may be used in poetry and later prose,[56] e.g. silvā lupus in Sabīnā (Horace)[57] 'a wolf in the Sabine forest', or metū in magnō (Livy) 'in great fear'.
[65] It is not correct to say in Latin 'the soldiers were being given their pay' but only 'pay was being given to the soldiers': Another unusual feature of Latin, compared with English, is that intransitive verbs such as eō 'I go', veniō 'I come', pugnō 'I fight' and persuādeō (+ dative) 'I persuade' can be made passive, but only in a 3rd person singular impersonal form:[67] The infinitive of a passive verb ends in -ī (3rd conjugation) or -rī (other conjugations): capī 'to be captured, audīrī 'to be heard', etc.
It is typically used in indirect statements: Most of the verbs ending in -or are true passives in meaning (i.e. they represent actions which are done by someone or by something).
However, there are a few which are ambivalent and can be either active or passive in meaning, such as vertor 'I turn' (intransitive) or 'I am turned', volvor 'I revolve' (intransitive) or 'I am rolled': In addition, there are a few verbs such as proficīscor 'I set out', polliceor 'I promise', cōnor 'I try' which despite their passive endings have an active meaning.
The imperfect subjunctive of every verb has the same form as the infinitive + -m: essem, possem, vellem, amārem, vidērem, īrem etc.
The negative of this kind is nē:[84] It can also represent what the speaker commands or suggests should happen (the 'jussive' subjunctive).
The words following quīn are always positive and usually state what was actually the case:[119] Another usage is after a negative verb such as 'I can't help doing' or 'he did not refrain from doing': Equally it can be used in sentences of the kind 'A didn't happen without B also happening': In sentences like the following, there is potential for confusion, since the quīn clause, though positive in Latin, is translated in English with a negative: In the following context, the words after quīn express not what actually happened but what very nearly happened: The pronoun quī 'who' or 'which', when followed by a subjunctive, can mean 'a person such as' (generic):[128] It can also mean 'in order to' (purpose):[130] Another meaning is 'in view of the fact that' (giving an explanation), as in the following example, said jokingly of a consul who was elected on the last day of the year:[132] Another reason for using the subjunctive after quī is to show that the words of the quī clause are quoted or part of indirect speech:[134] Clearly here Paetus had written or stated "I am giving you all the books which my brother left me", and Cicero is quoting his words indirectly to Atticus.
It is used in very formal contexts such as laws: Other requests are made with expressions such as cūrā ut 'take care to...', fac ut 'see to it that...' or cavē nē 'be careful that you don't...'[153] The future indicative can be used for polite commands:[155] Although often referred to as a 'mood',[157] the Latin infinitive is usually considered to be a verbal noun rather than a mood.
[161] Rarer tenses of the infinitive, for example captus fore or captūrus fuisse, are sometimes found in indirect speech.
The infinitive can be used as the subject, complement, or the object of a verb:[162] It can also be used, as in English, dependent on an adjective, or with verbs such as possum 'I am able' or volō 'I want': It is likewise used, as in English, with verbs such as iubeō 'I order', vetō 'I forbid', patior 'I allow', volō 'I want' and so on, where the subject of the complement clause (sometimes mistakenly referred as an object) is in the accusative case: However, other verbs of similar meaning, such as imperō 'I order', persuādeō 'I persuade', and hortor 'I urge', are not used with an infinitive, but with ut and the subjunctive mood: An infinitive is sometimes used to represent a series of repeated actions:[169] A very common use of the infinitive in Latin, in which it differs from English, is its use for indirect statements, that is for sentences where a subordinate clause is dependent on a main verb meaning 'he says', 'he knows', 'he pretends', 'he believes', 'he thinks', 'he finds out' and so on.
An example of the future infinitive using the future participle is the following: Often the esse part of a future active or perfect passive infinitive is omitted: Less common is the periphrastic perfect infinitive, used when a potential pluperfect subjunctive is converted into an indirect statement:[177] The above example also illustrates another feature of indirect statement, that a negative indirect statement ('they say that ... not') is usually represented by the use of the main verb negō 'I deny'.
In some contexts ut with the subjunctive is required, for example after a verb of happening:[179] In other circumstances a clause with quod 'the fact that' is used with the indicative:[181] In less educated authors quod could even substitute for the accusative an infinitive, though this did not become common until the second century:[183] This type of clause with quod (which became que in modern French, Portuguese and Spanish and che in Italian) gradually took over from the Accusative and infinitive construction and became the usual way of expressing indirect speech in modern Romance languages which are descended from Latin.
'with drawn sword') above is an example of a common idiom in which a noun and participle are put in the ablative case to represent the circumstances of the main event.
It is usually passive in meaning (although a few deponent verbs can form an active gerund, such as secundus 'following' from sequor 'I follow').
[209] Gerunds are usually formed from intransitive verbs,[209] and are mainly used in sentences such as the following where the meaning is 'by doing something', 'of doing something', or 'for the purpose of doing something'.