Anne Mahoney, Overview of Latin Syntax

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Sentence Construction

Latin writers use more complicated sentences than English writers do, but there are certain conventions and patterns that they generally follow. Because the word order in Latin does not convey grammatical information the way it does in English, Latin writers can re-arrange words to put the important ideas first, to emphasize puns and other word play, to fit poetic meter, or to put a surprise at the end of the sentence. Sentences in Latin prose can be long, but the best writers construct them carefully so the listener or reader does not get lost.

Word order

The usual order of words in a Latin sentence is subject, direct object, verb. AG 596

• Is sibi legationem ad civitates suscepit. Caesar, BG 1.3
• Senatus haec intellegit, consul videt; hic tamen vivit. Cicero, Catil. 1.2
• Accusatio crimen desiderat. Cicero, Cael. 6
• Nemo hunc M. Caelium in illo aetatis flore vidit nisi aut cum patre aut mecum. Cicero, Cael. 9

The order subject, verb, direct object is also common.

• Vergobretus vitae necisque in suos habet potestatem Caesar, BG 1.16
• Habemus Senatus consultum in te, Catilina. Cicero, Catil. 1.3
• Dixit multa de luxurie. Cicero, Cael. 25

Adjectives usually come near the nouns they modify. AG 598

• Helvetii iam per angustias et fines Sequanorum suas copias traduxerant. Caesar, BG 1.11 Suas must modify copias, not angustias, because of the word order as well as the sense.
• Etenim quid est, Catilina, quod iam amplius exspectes, si neque nox tenebris obscurare coetus nefarios nec privata domus parietibus continere voces coniurationis tuae potest, si inlustrantur, si erumpunt omnia? Cicero, Catil. 1.6
• Aurum sumptum a Clodia, venenum quaesitum quod Clodiae daretur, ut dicitur. Cicero, Cael. 30 It is the gold which is taken, the poison which is sought, not the other way around.

Adverbs usually come near the verbs (or adjectives) they modify. AG 598

• Helvetii repentino eius adventu commoti, cum id quod ipsi diebus viginti aegerrime confecerant, ut flumen transirent, illum uno die fecisse intellegerent, legatos ad eum mittunt. Caesar, BG 1.13 Here uno die modifies fecisse, not intellegerent: Caesar was able to do in one day what took the Helvetians twenty. The sentence does not say the Helvetians understood in one day what Caesar had done, but that he did it in one day.
• Illa nimis antiqua praetereo. Cicero, Catil. 1.3
• Aliud est male dicere, aliud accusare. Cicero, Cael. 6 Male dicere go so closely together that they end up becoming one word.

Latin word order is free but not arbitrary. When a word is not in its expected place, there is usually a reason. AG 597

• Divico ita cum Caesare egit: si pacem populus Romanus cum Helvetiis faceret, in eam partem ituros atque ibi futuros Helvetios ubi eos Caesar constituisset atque esse voluisset. Caesar, BG 1.13 Here in the protasis of the conditional in the indirect discourse, the base word order is direct object, subject, verb. Caesar could have written Si populus Romanus pacem cum Helvetiis faceret..., but put the direct object first for emphasis. Divico is stressing a trade-off: if you Romans make peace, we Helvetians will go wherever you want to put us. There's no stress on populus Romanus because it is not the Roman people who will really be concluding the peace, it's Caesar.
• Hos ego video consul et de re publica sententiam rogo, et quos ferro trucidari oportebat, eos nondum voce volnero! Cicero, Catil. 1.9 The direct object appears first partly to emphasize it and partly to allow Cicero to delay the word consul, making it emphatic; a more ordinary order might be Ego consul hos video.
• Quae lex ad imperium, ad maiestatem, ad statum patriae, ad salutem omnium pertinet, quam legem Q. Catulus armata dissensione civium rei publicae paene extremis temporibus tulit, quaeque lex sedata illa flamma consulatus mei fumantis reliquias coniurationis exstinxit, hac nunc lege Caeli adulescentia non ad rei publicae poenas sed ad mulieris libidines et delicias deposcitur. Cicero, Cael. 70 Here the phrases with lex are all placed at the front of their clauses, even though the second is a direct object and the fourth, in the main clause, an ablative of means; this is a form of the rhetorical figure of anaphora, used here to emphasize the discongruity between Caelio's actions and the grave crimes for which the law was originally intended.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Overview of Latin Syntax. Anne Mahoney. 2000. Text created electronically.