4. Word order
This is not currently part of the peer-reviewed material of the project. Do not cite as a research publication.
a. As a general principle, word order should be:
i. Comprehensible and reasonably natural in English.
ii. As close as possible to that of the Prose order, including same treatment of intercalary clauses.
b. There is a problem (for both the Prose order and the translation) with apo koinou usages of various kinds — e.g. adverbials and adjectives which could qualify more than one element in the helmingr. It will be best to opt for the most likely arrangement, but to signal in the Notes that other resonances are simultaneously in play.
c. Adjectives not adjacent to the nouns they qualify are grammatically ambiguous: should they be regarded as appositive or as predicative? E.g:
es siklingr barðisk snarr við harra Skotlands.
'when the ruler fought, valiant, against the lord of Scotland' or
'when the valiant ruler fought against the lord of Scotland'.
Good reasons can be brought for both, and these will need to be solved case by case. Ideally, prose order and translation should match, but even this may need to be flexible.