Appendix talk:Latin nouns

Word Order

I think that "word order doesn't matter" is one of those oversimplified obsolete generalizations for Latin. Word order is highly important in determining where the emphasis of a sentence lies. The example given by the article, infans puer est, doesn't actually make much sense considering that infans and puer refer to different ages of a person. Let's instead take a different example, Petrus est Papa and look at the different permutations and resulting semantics:

• Petrus est Papa. Peter is the Pope.
• Papa est Petrus. The Pope is (currently) Peter.
• Petrus Papa est. Peter is the Pope, and not, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Papa Petrus est. The Pope is Peter, and not, say, Paul.
• Est Petrus Papa. It is Peter, the Pope. (Or, perhaps: Peter, the Pope, exists. The sense of Behold, it is Peter, the Pope! would be conveyed by Ecce Petrus Papa.)
• Est Papa Petrus. It is the Pope, Peter.

Some other common myths about Latin:

• The verb always goes at the end. It does, except in the case of factitive verbs (verbs which make or equate one thing with another, such as esse), and whenever emphasis in the sentence is not neutral. So felem osculo means I kissed the cat, but osculo felem means It is the cat that I kissed, and not, say, the dog, or perhaps what I did to the cat is kiss it, and not pet it.

  Another canonical example is dog bites man. In Latin, this would be canis virum mordet. However, virum canis mordet would mean it is a man, and not, say, a bird, that the dog bites. We know that virum is emphasized because it was pulled out of its position and pushed up to the beginning of the sentence. Then we have virum mordet canis, which means it is a dog, and not, say, a snake, that bites the man.

• The order of adjectives in a set of adjectives doesn't matter. In fact, the order is the same as in English. You don't say *red big ball, but big red ball. Latin is no different, although you can say either magna rubra sphaera or sphaera rubra magna.

• The order of adjectives in relation to the noun doesn't matter. Well, it doesn't quite matter, but it's not random. You have to be consistent. If all your adjectives come before the noun, make sure that they do in every case except where you want emphasis. So if all your phrases have the adjective before the noun, as in rubra sphaera, then writing sphaera rubra means a red ball (as opposed to a blue ball).

Ever heard Habemus Papam? It's what the Vatican announces when a new Pope is elected. It doesn't mean just We have a Pope, it means that We have a Pope, as opposed to we do not have a Pope. Or perhaps, We now have a Pope.

So yes, the order of words in Latin matters.

That's nice, but what's the neutral order?

Sentence order

As given by the analysis of Devine and Stephens in Latin Word Order, the neutral order of sentences is:

Subj DO IO/Obl Adj Goal/Source Nonref-DO V.

Subj is the subject of the sentence (nominative) and DO is the direct object (accusative). IO is the indirect object (dative), and Obl is the oblique (which is any case except nominative and vocative).

Adj is the adjunct, an adverbial representing circumstances. This includes instrument, cause, time, place, manner, means, and as you can guess deals with the ablative and the ablative absolute.

Nonref-DO is a nonreferential direct object, which is a kind of direct object so tied to the verb that it cannot be separated. Several examples given: impetum facere (to make an attack), where impetum is a nonreferential direct object, gratias agere (to give thanks), where gratias is a nonreferential direct object, opem ferre (to bring assistance), iter facere (to journey), bellum gerere (to wage war). The reason these are nonreferential is that the direct object cannot be separated from the verb when asking a question. We cannot ask What did Caesar make? (an attack) or What did Caesar give? (thanks).

The equivalent in English would be the nonreferential preposition, as in the verb put up with. Thus the joke, "Placing a preposition at the end of a sentence is something up with which I will not put!"

Stacked adjective order

The hierarchy for adjectives is the same as in English:

(Quality >) Size > Length > Height > Width > Weight > Temperature > 
Age > Shape > Color > Provenance > Material.

Thus, in big red ball, big is the size and red is the color, and so since Size > Color, big must come first. In Latin, depending on whether adjectives are post- or pre-nominal, magna would come after or before, respectively, rubra.

Robert.Baruch 17:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)