Latin grammar
Word order
Latin keeps its grammar in the endings, not in the order of the words. So a writer can move words for emphasis, rhythm or sound, and a reader still knows what goes with what.
What to expect
- Prose often puts the verb last, and the subject early, but neither is a rule.
- Poets split an adjective from its noun: saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram, “because of the unforgetting anger of cruel Juno”. Saevae goes with Iunonis, memorem with iram, and the two pairs interlock.
- Orators do it for weight: Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? Cicero holds the adjective and its noun apart, puts the verb between them and saves audacia for the end.
How to read it
When an adjective arrives without its noun, keep it in mind and read on for a noun of the same case, number and gender. In the reader, its arc shows where it lands.
In the texts
Real lines from the graded passages, as the reader shows them, with an arc from the word to the one it agrees with.
…ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram
I sing of arms and a man, who first, an exile by fate, came from the shores of Troy to Italy and the Lavinian shores, that man having been tossed much both on lands and on the deep by the force of the gods, on account of the unforgetting wrath of savage Juno.
Memorem’s noun, iram, comes three words later; saevae, just before it, goes with Iunonis.
Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?
To what limit will unbridled boldness cast itself?
Effrenata and audacia frame the verb iactabit, and the word that matters comes last.
Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios temptaris numeros.
You should not ask—it is forbidden to know—what end the gods have given to me, what end to you, Leuconoe, nor should you consult Babylonian calculations.
Babylonios ends one line; its noun, numeros, waits for the verb temptaris in the next.
Adjectives to watch
Adjectives from the library’s analysed texts: each page shows the nouns they were read with.