Editing Latin grammar (section)

==Word order==
{{Main|Latin word order}}
Latin allows a very flexible word order because of its inflectional syntax. Ordinary prose tended to follow the pattern of subject, direct object, indirect object, adverbial words or phrases, verb (with the proviso that when noun and verb make a compound, as {{lang|la|impetum facio}} "I attack / make an attack" the noun is generally placed close to the verb).{{sfn|Devine|Stephens|2006|p=79}} Any extra but subordinate verb, such as an infinitive, is placed before the main verb. Adjectives and participles usually directly follow nouns unless they are adjectives of beauty, size, quantity, goodness, or truth, in which case they usually precede the noun being modified. However, departures from these rules are frequent.

Relative clauses are commonly placed after the antecedent that the relative pronoun describes. Since grammatical function in a sentence is based not on word order but on inflection, the usual word order in Latin was often abandoned with no detriment to understanding but with various changes in emphasis.

While these patterns of word order were the most frequent in Classical Latin prose, they were frequently varied. The strongest surviving evidence suggests that the word order of ''colloquial'' Latin was mostly [[Subject-Object-Verb]]. That can be found in some very [[conservative (language)|conservative]] Romance languages, such as [[Sardinian language|Sardinian]] and [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]] in which the verb is still often placed at the end of the sentence (see [[Vulgar Latin]]). On the other hand, [[subject-verb-object]] word order was probably also common in ancient Latin conversation, as it is prominent in the [[Romance languages]], which evolved from Latin.{{sfn|Devine|Stephens|2006|pp=3-5|ps=&nbsp; "Word order is what gets the reader of Latin from disjoint sentences to coherent and incrementally interpretable text."}}

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. One must bear in mind that poets in the Roman world wrote primarily for the ear, not 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, {{lang|la|Omnia vincit amor, et nōs cēdāmus amōrī!}}: "''Love'' conquers ''all'', let us too yield to ''love!''". The words {{lang|la|omnia}} (all), ''amor'' (love) and {{lang|la|amōrī}} (to love) are thrown into relief by their unusual position in their respective phrases.

The ending of the common Roman name ''Mārcus'' is different in each of the following pairs of examples because of its grammatical usage in each pair. The ordering in the second sentence of each pair would be correct in Latin and clearly understood, whereas in English it is awkward, at best, and meaningless, at worst:

:{{lang|la|Mārc'''us''' ferit Cornēliam}}: Marcus hits Cornelia. (subject–verb–object)
:{{lang|la|Mārc'''us''' Cornēliam ferit}}: Marcus Cornelia hits. (subject–object–verb)
:{{lang|la|Cornēlia dedit Mārc'''ō''' dōnum}}: Cornelia gave Marcus a gift. (subject–verb–indirect object–direct object)
:{{lang|la|Cornēlia Mārc'''ō''' dōnum dedit}}: Cornelia (to) Marcus a gift gave. (subject–indirect object–direct object–verb)