La struttura del sintagma nominale latino

The paper proposes a systematic overview of the structure of the Latin noun phrase, as part of a generative theoretical framework. The objective is to demonstrate that, despite the freedom of Latin, we can capture some generalizations in the basic non-marked order of the elements in the noun phrase. After a quick introduction and a history of the matter (par. 1-2), the parallelism between sentence structure and noun phrase structure allows to identify the existence of three areas (par. 3). The first is the area of argument structure: even in the noun phrase, it is possible to observe the existence of a hierarchy in the order of subject and object (par. 4). The second is the area of the adjectival modification: it is possible to find also in Latin a hierarchy in the order of adjectives, similar to that observed in other languages (par 5). The apparent violations to the hierarchy in the first two areas are explained by the movement of the name to higher functional positions. The third area is the so-called left periphery of the phrase, in which the elements can be deplaced for reasons of information structure (topic - comment). So, not only in the sentence, but even within the noun phrase, these movements produce numerous marked orders, which can be explained case by case for communicative or stylistic reasons (par. 6).