Latin to English – Word Order

Sentence Type and Word Order.

Declarative Statements. Declarative statements are sentences that simply make a statement: “It is raining”, “The boys are running”, etc. In English grammar the rule for word order governing declarative statements is: the subject comes first, the verb follows and the verbal complement comes after the verb:

SUBJECT » VERB » COMPLEMENT

If the statement is negative the negative adverb “not” comes after the verb; if the conjugated verb to be negated is something other than the verb “to be”, one must use the the modal “do”, followed by the adverb “not”, followed by the simple infinite of the original verb: e.g. “I like ice cream” > “I do not like ice cream”, etc.

Exclamatory Statements. Declarative statements are sentences that express surprise, shock, anger, admiration or other strong emotion. They often have the appearance of interrogative statements, placing an interrogative phrase first, but with the exception that the order of subject and verb is not inverted; the exclamatory phrase comes first in the statement: “How foolish you are!”, “What big teeth you have, Grandma!”

INTERROGATIVE PHRASE » SUBJECT » VERB » COMPLEMENT

Interrogative Statements. Interrogative statements (or “questions”) are sentences that make an inquiry. The rule governing word order in questions is this the interrogative adverb or phrase comes first and the subject-verb order is inverted. The modal verb “do” is regularly used after the interrogative phrase, followed by the simple infinitive. If there is no interrogative adverb or pronoun, the verb phrase comes first: “Do you see the light?”, “How do you do this?” “Which one do you want me to do first?”

INTERROGATIVE PHRASE » VERB » SUBJECT » (VERB) » COMPLEMENT

Order of Operations (for converting Latin statements into English)

1. Subject

a. Nominatives: Caecilius bibit = “Caecilius drinks.” or

b. Verb ending: bibit = “He drinks.”

2. Verb

3. Direct Object or Complement

a. Accusative: Caecilius amīcum salūtat = “Caecilius greets his friend.”

b. Predicate nominatives: Caecilius est pater = “Caecilius is the father.”

c. Infinitives: vult rīdēre = “He wants to laugh.”

4. Modifiers

a. Prepositional phrases: Metella in hortō sedet = “Metella is sitting in the garden.”

b. Adverbs: servus numquam rīdet = “The slave never laughs.”

c. Datives: Quīntus servō pecūniam dat = “Quintus gives money to the slave.”

d. Genitives: Metellae librum tenēs = “You are holding Metalla’s book.”

e. Ablatives: magnā voce clāmāvit = “He shouted with a loud voice.”

Sentence Types

Sentence. A sentence is a grammatically complete statement.

Parts of the Sentence.

Subject. The subject is what the statement is about. The subject is the person or thing about whom / about which the statement is made. The subject is the person or thing who / which is the source of the action, is doing the action, is subject to the condition or is undergoing the experience: “Birds fly”; “The boy hit the ball”; “The ball was hit by the boy”. The logical subject is the subject noun together will all its modifiers: “Driving while intoxicated is both illegal and dangerous”; “Many of us here do not approve”.

A compound subject consists of two or more noun phrases, usually joined by conjunctions, that stand as subject to a verb: “Many boys and a few girls were running through the streets”.

Predicate. The predicate is what is said about the subject. The predicate consists of the verb and all its modifiers. “The parrot was sitting on a wire among a flock of pigeons”.

Classifications of Sentences:

Simple sentences

Simple sentences have a single subject and a single predicate, as in “The boy hit the ball”. The subject may be a compound subject, as in “Achilles and Ajax both ran to catch the ball”. In translating, follow the above order of operations. When one sentence follows another and the subject of both sentences is the same grammatical person, the subject of the second sentence will only be expressed by the verb ending; i.e., follow Step 1.b. above:

Caecilius amīcum videt. amīcum salūtat.

“Caecilius sees his friend. He greets his friend.”

Compound sentences

Compound sentences consist of two grammatically distinct statements joined into a single sentence. The sentences may be joined by a semi-colon, by a comma (if both are short) or by a conjunction: “Geese fly South; trout swim upstream”; “Birds fly, fish swim”; “Duck fly North, and trout swim upstream”; “Geese migrate, but brown bears hibernate”. Compound sentences therefore have two principal verbs.

In translating, scan through the sentence and find the first verb; translate everything from it to the beginning of the sentence. Translate according to the above order of operations. Do not go past the conjunction (et, sed, aut, etc.) until you have done this. Then deal with the rest of the sentence in the same way.

Caecilius ancillam ēmit || et ad vīllam revenit.

“Caecilius buys the slave-girl and (he) returns to the house.”

Note that two verbs may share a single accusative; in English you may need to introduce a pronoun.

Caecilius amīcum videt et salūtat.

“Caecilius sees his friend and greets him.”

Complex sentences

Compound sentences also have two or more verbs, but only one of its constituent statements or clauses is free-standing. The secondary statement, called a ‘subordinate clause’, is usually set off by commas, and it may not stand on its own as an independent statement. Example: “Because we are friends, I will help you.” Here there are two verbs and two statements, but the first statement cannot stand as an independent sentence; it is subordinate to the second clause. In Latin, bracket the subordinate clause and translate the main clause first, following the above order of operations.

coquus, [quod laetus erat], cēnam optimam parāvit.

“[Because the cook was happy,] he prepared an excellent dinner.”

Note that when the subject of the two clauses is the same person, Latin likes to place this person first in the sentence; we cannot do this in English (“The cook, because he …, he ….”: there is one too many he’s in this sentence).

Note that inquit, “says/said”, must be placed after the beginning of the quotation in a Latin sentence. Put your translation your translation of inquit before the beginning of the direct quotation to keep the parts of the quotation together.

“avārus”, inquit fūr, “est sōlus”.

The thief said, ‘The miser is alone’.