Latin word order

Latin word order is relatively free. The subject, object, and verb can come in any order; an adjective can go before or after their noun; and a genitive such as "of the enemy" can also be placed before or after its noun. A common feature of Latin is hyperbaton in which a phrase is split up by other words: "it is Sextus Tarquinius".
A complicating factor in Latin word order is that there are variations in the style of different authors and between different genres of writing. In Caesar's historical writing, the verb is much more likely to come at the end of the sentence than in Cicero's philosophy. The word order of poetry is even freer than in prose, and examples of interleaved word order (double hyperbaton) are common.
In terms of word order typology, Latin is classified by some scholars as basically an SOV (subject-object-verb) language, with preposition-noun, noun-genitive, and adjective-noun (but also noun-adjective) order. Other scholars, however, argue that the word order of Latin is so variable that it is impossible to establish one order as more basic than another.
Although the order of words in Latin is comparatively free, it is not random but frequently different orders indicate different nuances of meaning and emphasis. As the authors of "Latin Word Order", Devine and Stephens, put it: "Word order is not a subject which anyone reading Latin can afford to ignore... Reading a paragraph of Latin without attention to word order entails losing access to a whole dimension of meaning."
Influence on meaning.
Studying word order in Latin helps the reader to understand the author's meaning more clearly. For example, means more than "Trimalchio clapped his hands", but the initial verb implies a sudden action: "Trimalchio suddenly clapped his hands". In another sentence, the initial verb functions as a topic: does not mean merely "Corellius Rufus has died" but rather "The person who has died is Corellius Rufus." In another sentence, the initial verb is emphatic: means more than "I saw the forum" but "with my own eyes, I saw the forum".
The placement of adjectives also affects the emphasis. Thus, , with the possessive before the noun, means not "my fame" but "my "own" fame," and , with the number at the end of the sentence and separated from its noun, does not mean only "five ships were burnt" but "no fewer than five ships were burnt."
The use of hyperbaton (separation of words that normally go together) is also worth observing. Thus, Caesar's , with separated from and at the end of the sentence, means not "These floods remained for several days" but "This time, the flood waters, unlike the previous ones, remained for several days."
Theoretical approaches.
In the past 100 years, especially since the advent of computerised texts, Latin word order has been extensively studied with a view to elucidating the principles on which it is based. Two major recent works on Latin word order, based on different approaches, are those of Devine and Stephens (2006) and Olga Spevak (2010).
It is generally agreed that pragmatic factors play a major role in Latin word order, such as topic and focus, contrast, emphasis, and heaviness. The topic (what is being talked about) it often at the beginning of the sentence, with the focus (what is said about the topic) being at the end or in the penultimate position.
Other factors that play a role in word order are semantic (for example, adjectives of size usually precede the noun, and those of material more often follow it). In some Latin authors, consideration of such matters as euphony, assonance, and rhythm is also important.
One major area of disagreement is how far syntax plays a role in word order. According to Devine and Stephens (2006), Latin has a basic neutral word order, which they state is as follows:
A "non-referential object" goes closely with the verb and makes a phrase with it like in the phrase "to make an attack".
Following the theories of generative grammar, Devine and Stephens assume that deviations from that basic unmarked order are made to put emphasis on different elements. They use the term "scrambling" if constituents come in a different order from the basic one, and they assume that scrambling occurs when an element is moved leftwards, towards the beginning of the sentence, which is called "raising".
Olga Spevak (2010), on the other hand, based her work on theories of functional grammar and rejects that approach. She considers that there are so many deviations from the so-called neutral order between authors and even in the works of the same author that it is not possible to discover what the neutral order must be. Therefore, an approach insisting on a basic unmarked order "does not really help a Latinist to better understand Latin constituent order." She stresses that according to the principles of functional grammar, as outlined by the Dutch linguist Simon Dik, words take their positions in a sentence according to a certain template, not by being moved from elsewhere.
However, not all scholars are ready to dismiss syntactic factors entirely. J.G.F. Powell, in his review of Spevak's book, commented that "nobody has yet succeeded in unifying the insights of all the different scholarly approaches to the fascinating and peculiar problem of Latin word order." In his view, an approach that combines the various schools of thought on Latin word order "may succeed in finding a more satisfactory solution."
Topic and focus.
Several recent books, such as those of Panhuis and Spevak, have analysed Latin sentences from a pragmatic point of view. Syntactic approaches traditionally analyse a sentence into Subject and Predicate, but a pragmatic analysis considers a sentence from the point of view of Topic and Focus (or Theme and Rheme, as Panhuis (1982) puts it). This type of approach was also proposed by Sturtevant (1909), who referred to the topic as the "psychological subject".
As with Subject, Object and Verb, Topic and Focus can be arranged in different ways in a sentence.
Topic.
Types of topic.
The topic is the thing or person that is being talked about in the sentence. Spevak (2010) distinguishes various kinds of topic: discourse topic, sentence topic, sub-topic, future topic, theme, and so on. A sentence topic is one that picks up the immediately preceding context (e.g. below) and has precedence over the discourse topic ( below):
A topic will often take precedence over a conjunction, and the following word order where the topic (in this case the grammatical subject) precedes "when" is fairly common:
Topicless sentences.
Not every sentence has a topic, but some present information which is entirely new. Pinkster gives the following as an example:
Such sentences are sometimes called "presentative sentences" and often start with a verb.
Focus.
The focus is the new information, i.e. the message which is being conveyed to the listener.
Final focus.
Often in Latin the topic comes first, and then the focus. For example, in the sentence below, the topic is "in the bathhouse" (), which has been previously mentioned, and the sub-topic is the hot-room () (since it can be assumed that all bath-houses have a hot room); the new information is that Cicero has moved the hot room, and the place to which he has moved it:
Similarly, in the following example, the new information is the sumptuousness of the funerals in question:
In the following example, where the adverb "quickly" is placed early in the sentence, the main information is the action "took up arms"; the speed is subsidiary information (Devine and Stephens use the terms "nuclear focus" and "weak focus" for this):
Often the verb can be part of the topic, as in the following example. The new information, or focus, is the person who followed and the number of ships he brought:
Penultimate focus.
A very frequent place for the focus, however, is in penultimate position, just before the verb or another element. In the example below, Alba has been mentioned in the previous sentence, and the fact that cities have rulers can be assumed; the new information or focus is the name of the ruler at that time, Gaius Cluilius. In this sentence, as in the previous example, the verb itself acts as a topic:
When an unemphatic argument, neither focus nor topic, such as above, follows the focussed word in this way, it is known as a "tail".
In the following example the fact that northerly regions have winters is already known, and the new information is the fact that they come early:
In the following, the fire has already been mentioned; the new information is that it continued day and night, with the main emphasis on the fact that it was continuous:
In the following, the fact that the road has been measured can be assumed (Cicero has just mentioned the measurement); the new information is that he measured it himself:
Similarly in the following, the fact that orders were given has already been mentioned, and the fact that they were carried out can be assumed; the new information is that they were carried out quickly:
In the following, the sentence answers the unspoken question "What did the general do with all the money he found in the captured city?", the answer being "He sent it to Rome" (with "Rome" being the most important word):
Initial focus.
Occasionally, the focus can be given extra emphasis by being placed before the topic. In the following pair of sentences, the focus of one is at the beginning, and of the other at the end:
In the sentence below from Livy, the sentence topic ("that year") and discourse topic ("the war") are in the middle of the sentence. The fact that war was waged on both land and sea is a weak focus placed in penultimate position; but the new and surprising information is that the number of Roman legions was no fewer than 23, and this comes at the beginning of the sentence before the topic:
Emphatic topics.
In the following sentence with antithesis, two topics, "the land journey" and "the journey by sea", are contrasted. Because they are contrasted, the topics are more emphatic than the focus:
Similar is the following, where the contrasted topics are "when I was a young man" and "now that I am an old one":
Devine and Stephens refer to such emphatic topics used contrastively as "co-focus".
Another example is the following, where the phrase "this place" (namely the city of Laurentum which was mentioned in the previous sentence) is in the emphatic penultimate position, as though it were the focus:
No recordings exist of Latin from the classical period, but it can be assumed that differences in emphasis in Latin were shown by intonation as well as by word order.
Euphony and rhythm.
Euphony and rhythm undoubtedly played a large part in Roman writers' choice of word order, especially in oratory, but also in historians such as Livy. Statements from the writers themselves make it clear that the important consideration was the clausula or rhythm of the final few syllables of each clause.
Cicero himself, commenting on a speech of the tribune Gaius Carbo, quotes the sentence below, which apparently caused the audience to burst into shouts of approval:
He notes that the sentence would be ruined rhythmically if the word order of the last three words were changed to . What was apparently admired here was the clausula of with its double trochaic – u – – rhythm; whereas would make a rhythm of u u u –, which Cicero says would produce an unsatisfying effect in Latin, despite being recommended by Aristotle.
In another passage from the same work, Cicero criticises a sentence from the orator Crassus on the grounds that it sounds like a line of iambic poetry. To avoid this, he says it would be better if the sentence ended (– u – – –) rather than (– – – u –).
The 1st-century A.D. teacher of oratory, Quintilian, remarks that hyperbaton (switching words round) is often used to make a sentence more euphonious. He gives the example of the following sentence from the opening of Cicero's :
Quintilian says that would be correct, but "harsh and inelegant".
In another place he says that to end a sentence with the verb is best, because the verb is the most forceful part of the sentence (); but if putting a verb finally is rhythmically harsh, the verb is frequently moved.
Another example where euphonic considerations may have played a part in word order is the following, from a letter by Pliny the Younger:
Since was pronounced , the unusual order with the demonstrative following the noun produces a favourite double cretic clausula (– u – – u –). There is also a pleasing assonance of the vowels "a-u-i a-u-i" in the last three words.
Individual style.
Another factor affecting word order was the individual style of different authors. Devine and Stephens note for example that Livy is fond of putting the object after the verb at the end of the clause (e.g. "he placed a camp", rather than , which Caesar preferred).
Other differences between authors have been observed. For example, Caesar frequently places a number after a noun (in about 46% of cases), but this is rarer in Cicero (only 10% of cases).
Verb position.
Several scholars have examined Latin sentences from a syntactic point of view, in particular the position of the verb.
Final verb.
In sentences with Subject, Object, and Verb, any order is possible. However, some orders are more common than others. In a sample of 568 sentences of Caesar containing all three elements examined by Pinkster, the proportions were:
An example of the typical Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order in Caesar is:
A dependent infinitive, such as "to be killed" below, also in Caesar usually precedes its verb:
However, in other genres of Latin, especially more colloquial types such as the comic dialogues of Plautus, Cicero's letters, or Petronius's satiric novel, the final position for the verb is much less common. comments: "In certain texts the medial position of the verb seems more normal than the final."
Linde (1923) counted the verb final clauses in various texts and produced the following figures:
In all authors, the verb tends to be final more often in subordinate clauses than in main clauses.
Over the centuries, verb-final main clauses became less common. In the writing of Egeria (Aetheria) of about A.D. 380, only 25% of main clauses and 37% of subordinate clauses are verb-final.
The verb "I am" (or its parts) is an exception to the rule that verbs tend to come at the end of the sentence in Caesar and Cicero. According to one investigation, in Caesar, when the verb is , only 10% of main clauses end with the verb. With other verbs, the figure is 90%.
In Cicero the verb is used at the end of a sentence slightly more often, in 20%–35% of main clauses. However, this is less than with other verbs, for which the figure is 55%–70%.
The above figures apply to sentences where is used as in independent verb (e.g. "it is difficult"), rather than as an auxiliary to another verb (e.g. "he set out"), when it frequently ends the clause.
Different authors have different preferences. In Sallust, who has a rather conservative style, the verb (except where existential) tends to go at the end of the sentence. Cato also usually puts the verb finally, except in specificational and identity sentences, such as the following:
Penultimate verb.
Quite commonly, especially in certain authors such as Nepos and Livy, the verb can come in penultimate position, followed by the object, as in this example:
This stylistic feature, consisting of Verb + Object at the end of a clause, is referred to by Devine and Stephens as "V-bar syntax". It is much less common in Caesar than in Livy. In Caesar the phrase "placed a camp" always comes in that order, but in Livy it is found as in 45 out of 55 examples (82%).
Even in Caesar, however, a locative phrase may occasionally follow a verb of motion, especially when the locative is focussed:
Other prepositional phrases can also sometimes follow the verb:
Other types of phrases which can sometimes follow a verb are relative clauses:
Dependent clauses with almost always follow the verb:
Another kind of situation where the verb commonly comes in penultimate position is when it is followed by a strongly focussed negative pronoun such as "no one" or "anyone":
The grammatical subject can come after the verb in sentences of the following kind where it is focussed, and the verb itself forms part of the topic:
Similarly in sentences such as the following, it is reasonable to suppose that the object is focussed:
This type of sentence where the focus is on the object at the end should be distinguished from sentences with V-bar syntax such as "he drew a circle round the king" mentioned above, in which the object is not focussed.
Initial verb.
Sudden actions.
Initial verbs are often used in sentences such as the following, which describe a sudden or immediate consequence of a previous event:
Such sentences are of a type known as "thetic" sentences, which answer "What happened?" rather than "What did the subject do?" Frequently they are in the historic present tense (in Caesar the historic present is six times as common in verb-initial sentences as the perfect tense).
Sometimes, even if the verb does not come at the beginning of the sentence, the suddenness of the action can be shown by placing it earlier in its clause. Thus the final words of this sentence, which would normally be "they make an attack from higher ground", are changed to to emphasise the element of surprise:
Agentless verbs.
The agent of the verb in thetic sentences tends to be less important than the verb; consequently, verb-initial sentences often have a verb in the passive voice. In Caesar, the passive verb ("is sent") is much commoner sentence-initially than ("he sends"):
Intransitive verbs of the type called unaccusative verbs, that is, verbs which have no voluntary agent, such as "remain", "grow", "stand", "be open", "flow or spread", also often begin thetic sentences:
Situations.
Thetic sentences with initial verb can also be explanatory or give background information:
Presentational verbs (e.g. "there was") are also usually sentence-initial:
Emphatic verb.
A verb at the beginning of the sentence is often emphatic, perhaps expressing something surprising:
Another situation favouring initial verb position is where the verb is in contrastive focus (antithesis), as in the following:
The verbs also come initially in sentences like the one below, in which there is a double antithesis. These are examples of sentences with initial focus (see above):
Another reason for using a sentence-initial verb is when the speaker is emphatically asserting the truth of a fact:
Verbs with meanings such as "move", "offend", "make anxious" etc., known as "psych" verbs, also often come sentence-initially. In Livy, the verb ("moved") frequently (although not always) comes first if it is used in the metaphorical sense:
But when the sense is literal, it always come finally:
Verb as topic.
Another reason for putting the verb first is that it represents the topic of the sentence, while the grammatical subject which follows it is the focus. For example, after mentioning that he has been upset by the death of someone, Pliny goes on to say:
Other examples of this are given above in the section on topic and focus.
Questions and imperatives.
An initial verb can also be used (without emphasis) in yes-no questions:
Imperatives also often (but not always) come at the beginning of a sentence:
The verb "to be".
The verb ("I am") can be used as an auxiliary verb (e.g. "he was killed"), as a copula (e.g. "he was rich") or as an existential verb, specifying the existence of something.
Existential.
As an existential verb, (or its past tense ) often goes at the beginning of the sentence:
Of these two orders, the first (with the locative phrase between the verb and the noun) is by far the most common. The second example above is unusual in that it does not present new information but merely reminds the reader of what has already been said ("There was a valley, as mentioned above...").
In other sentences, the verb or follows the word which it is presenting, or comes in the middle of a phrase in hyperbaton:
Location.
The verb can also specify the location of a thing or person and can equally come at the beginning or end of the sentence:
Copula.
When is a copula, it tends to be unemphatic and to be placed after a stronger word, or between two strong words:
This strong word which follows can also be the subject:
It is also possible for the subject to follow the copula:
Or the order may be Adjective, Subject, Copula:
When the sentence is negative, however, the verb tends to follow and is often clause-final:
Auxiliary.
When is an auxiliary, it normally follows the participle which it is used with:
Sometimes, however, the auxiliary can be placed earlier to follow some significant item of information, such as a quantity phrase or focussed word:
In subordinate clauses the auxiliary is frequently placed directly after the conjunction or relative pronoun:
But if there is a focus word following the conjunction or relative pronoun, the auxiliary follows that:
In a negative sentence, the auxiliary tends to follow the word . can either precede or follow the participle:
For "he did not dare", Latin writers use all three orders: , , , but the first of these is the most common:
Adjective position.
In Latin, an adjective can either precede or follow its noun: for example, "a good man" can be both or . Some kinds of adjectives are more inclined to follow the noun, others to precede, but "the precise factors conditioning the variation are not immediately obvious".
In Caesar and Cicero, it has been found that the majority (60%–80%) of ordinary adjectives, not counting pronominals and numerals, precede their nouns.
Factors affecting adjective position.
Semantic.
One factor affecting the order is semantic. As a general rule, adjectives which express an inherent property of the noun, such as "gold" in "gold ring", tend to follow it. Where the adjective is more salient or important than the noun, as "Appian" in "Appian Way" (), it also tends to follow it.
Adjectives which express a subjective evaluation, such as "serious", on the other hand, usually go before the noun. Adjectives of size and quantity also usually precede (in 91% of examples in Caesar, 83% in Cicero), as do demonstrative adjectives such as "this" and "that" (99% in Caesar, 95% in Cicero).
Adjectives where there is a choice between two alternatives, such as "left" or "right", or "preceding" and "following", also tend to go before the noun. However, the opposite order (e.g. "with left hand", Catullus 12) is also found.
Contrast and focus.
Other factors such as focus and contrast may also affect the order. When there is contrastive focus the adjective will precede, even if it is one such as a geographical name which normally follows:
Even when the contrast is not explicit, a strong focus may cause the adjective to come first:
On the other hand, an adjective which normally precedes, such as a number, can follow the noun when it is focussed or emphasised:
Contrast the following, where the emphasis is on :
Diachronic change.
Over time the position of adjectives can be seen changing, for example, between Cato the Elder (2nd century BC) and Columella (1st century AD). Adjectives describing the type of something, such as "wooden", "designed for oil" or "new" always follow the noun in Cato, but can come either before or after in Columella.
In Cato, the adjective "big" follows its noun in 7 out of 9 examples, e.g. "big storms", but in Caesar about 95% of examples go before the noun.
Livy uses this antique word order at a dramatic moment in his history when he reports the words of the magistrate announcing the news of the disaster at the battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 BC:
Another adjective which changes over time is "all". In Cato this word goes before or after the noun with equal frequency, but in Cicero's speeches 80% of the time it precedes, and in Caesar it goes before the noun even more commonly.
Stylistic preferences.
As with other aspects of word order, stylistic preferences also play a part in adjective order. For example, the adjective in its literal sense of "higher" (e.g. "from a higher place") usually comes after the noun in Cicero and in Caesar, but in Livy the position before the noun () is much commoner. Vitruvius and Seneca the Younger also preferred the earlier position.
Commonly used phrases.
In certain commonly used phrases, the adjective comes after the noun without variation: 
In others, the position after the noun is more common but not fixed. The phrase "civil war" has the adjective following in about 60% of Cicero's examples.
In other commonly used phrases, the adjective always comes first. These include certain terms of relative position and certain adjectives of time:
In other common phrases, such as "at first light", the adjective usually comes first, but is also found.
Hyperbaton.
Often adjectives are emphasised by separating them from the noun by other words (a technique known as hyperbaton). This is especially true of adjectives of size and quantity, but also superlatives, comparatives, demonstratives, and possessives.
Premodifier hyperbaton.
Often the adjective precedes the noun:
The separation can sometimes be a long one:
Premodifying adjectives in hyperbaton often have focus or contrastive emphasis. In the following example, "these particular" floods are contrasted with some earlier ones which lasted a shorter time:
Sometimes they are merely brought to the front to emphasise them. So in the following example, the adjective "bloody" is raised to the beginning of the sentence to highlight it and make it stand out:
Sometimes both the noun and the adjective are important or focussed:
This last sentence is an example of double hyperbaton, since "everyone's minds" is an example of genitive hyperbaton.
Postmodifier hyperbaton.
Hyperbaton is also possible when the adjective follows the noun. Often with postmodifier hyperbaton, the noun is indefinite:
If the noun is definite, the adjective can be predicative:
Sometimes the noun, not the adjective, is focussed, and the adjective is a mere tail, as in the following:
Numbers.
Cardinal numbers tend to come before the noun in Cicero (90% of examples), but in Caesar only 54% come before the noun. When following the noun, the numeral is often focussed, as in the following, where the important information is in the number "three":
Distributive or numerals usually precede the noun, both in Cicero and Caesar:
Ordinals precede the noun in 73% of Caesar's examples. But when used with , they follow:
Possessive adjectives.
Personal possessives.
Possessive adjectives, such as "my", "his/their", are fairly evenly distributed (68% preceding in Caesar, 56% in a sample of Cicero speeches). When a possessive follows the noun it is unemphatic:
When it is more emphatic, or in contrastive focus, it precedes:
However, the possessive adjective preceding the noun is not always emphatic: when it is tucked away between two more emphatic words it is usually unemphatic:
It is also usual for the possessive to precede the noun when vocative:
and.
The 3rd person genitive pronouns, "his" and "their", tend to precede their noun in Caesar (in 73% of instances). Unlike the possessive adjectives, however, there is often no particular emphasis when they are used before a noun:
With certain nouns, such as "his brother" or "his friend", however, the position after the noun is slightly more usual.
Pronominal adjectives.
Pronominal adjectives are those which can serve both as pronouns and adjectives, such as "this", "another", "a certain (man)" and so on. These adjectives generally have genitive singular and dative singular .
The most frequent position for pronominal adjectives is before the noun.
Demonstratives.
Demonstratives, such as ("that") and ("this"), almost always precede the noun in both in Caesar (99%) and in Cicero's speeches (95%).
When it follows a noun in unemphatic position, can often mean "the aforementioned":
In the same way, when it follows a noun, can sometimes mean "that famous":
But more frequently, even when it means "the aforementioned", and also when it means "this one here", will precede the noun:
and.
The pronouns "another", "another (of two)", "any", and "no", when used adjectivally, precede the noun in most cases (93% in both Caesar and Cicero).
"in another place"
Occasionally, however, when emphatic, they may follow:
In the following, there is a chiasmus (ABBA order):
 in phrases such as ("Alexander himself") usually precedes the noun in Caesar, as also in Cicero, although Cicero's preference is not as strong.
and.
The word "a certain" can either precede or follow its noun: 
When it is used with a person's name, it always follows, or else goes between forename and surname:
In such a position it is unemphatic, and the emphasis is on the name.
The other indefinite pronoun, (the adjectival form of ), similarly can either follow or precede its noun:
Of these two, the phrase is slightly more common; and the phrase "somehow or other" is always in that order.
Stacked adjectives.
It is been noted that in various languages when more than one adjective precedes a noun, they tend to come in a particular order. In English the order usually given is: Determiner > Number > Opinion > Size > Quality > Age > Shape > Colour > Participle forms > Origin > Material > Type > Purpose (for example, "those two large brown Alsatian guard dogs"). In general an adjective expressing a non-permanent state (such as "hot") will go further from the noun than an adjective of type or material which expresses an inherent property of the object.
In Latin, when adjectives precede, they generally have the same order as in English: 
When the adjectives follow, the opposite order is usually used:
There are some apparent exceptions, however, such as the following, in which the adjective "luxurious" is placed next to the noun:
The demonstrative "this" normally goes before a number, as in English. However, the reverse order is also possible:
When follows a noun, it goes close to it:
Adjectives of the same semantic class are usually joined by a conjunction in Latin:
Quite commonly also, one adjective precedes and another follows, as in:
Preposition, adjective, noun.
When a preposition, adjective and noun are used together, this order is the most common one (75% of Caesar's examples):
More rarely, a monosyllabic preposition may come between an adjective and noun in hyperbaton:
However, this is mainly true only of the prepositions , , , and and mainly with interrogatives and relatives and a limited number of adjectives.
The order preposition, noun, adjective is also less common:
Genitive position.
Possessive genitive.
Just as with adjectives, a genitive such as "of the enemies" can either precede or follow its head-noun. Thus for "camp of the enemies", both and are found. Overall, however, there is a slight tendency for a genitive to come after a noun in both Caesar and Cicero (57% of examples).
Individual preferences play a part in genitive position. In Livy books 1–10, "the camp of the enemies" (74% of examples) is more common than . Caesar, on the other hand, seems to prefer (69% of examples). But when a name is used with , Caesar usually puts it after the noun (86% of examples), for example "Labienus's camp".
Relationship terms.
With relationship terms, such as "wife", the genitive can go either before or after the noun. Often when it follows, the genitive is unemphatic:
Often (but not always) when the genitive precedes, it is focussed:
One noun which almost always has a preceding genitive is "son/daughter":
Objective genitive.
When the genitive is an objective one, e.g. "hope of victory" or "the saviour of Asia", it normally follows the noun. However, considerations of focus or emphasis can cause it to precede:
Subjective genitive.
Subjective genitives can precede or follow the noun. For example, with "memory", a subjective genitive usually (but not always) precedes:
However, with "hope", a subjective genitive usually follows, unless focussed:
If a phrase has both a subjective and objective genitive, the subjective one (whether it comes before or after the noun) will usually precede the objective one:
Partitive genitive.
Partitive genitives usually follow the noun:
However, the genitive can also sometimes precede, especially if it is a topic or sub-topic:
Adjective, genitive, noun.
Another place a genitive is often found is between an adjective and the head-noun, especially when the adjective is an emphatic one such as "all":
This also applies when a participle is used instead of an adjective:
The orders Adjective-Noun-Genitive and Adjective-Genitive-Noun are both common in Caesar and Cicero; but Genitive-Adjective-Noun is infrequent.
Enclitic words.
Typical enclitic words.
There are certain words that are enclitic: they always follow a stronger word. Examples are "for", "however, moreover", and "indeed", which virtually always come after the first full word of the sentence (not counting prepositions) and are never the first.
Other words that require a stronger word on which to lean are "also" and "indeed" and can never begin a sentence. Other words, such as "approximately" and , are frequently enclitic:
In the phrase "not even," the word generally follows the first word of the emphasised phrase, rather than the whole phrase:
Weak pronouns.
Personal pronouns such as "me" and "to me" can have weak and strong forms in Latin. When weak, they tend to be found early in the sentence either after the first word (which can be a conjunction such as "when" or "and") or after an enclitic such as , if present:
Contrast sentences like the following have the indirect object being a full noun and following the direct object (which Devine and Stephens consider to be the neutral word order):
Unlike true enclitics, however, pronouns can also sometimes begin a sentence:
As with the copula (see above), when a focus phrase or emphatic delayed topic phrase intervenes, the weak pronoun will usually follow it, rather than the first word of the sentence:
However, the pronoun is sometimes found in second position, and then follows the focussed phrase:
In the following example, the pronoun follows not the focused word but the conjunction "if":
In terms of transformational grammar, the sentence can be analysed as being derived from * by raising and to earlier in the sentence. A functionalist, on the other hand, would say that naturally comes first as the topic, then in its normal place, then the unemphatic pronoun, without anything being moved.