Proper Order of Words

This is not an easy topic (is there one?). Word order often differs from the romance languages. Below are typical difficulties.

A negative sentence that starts with the negation (for emphasis) is inverted, i.e., the verb precedes the subject:

In no case is the entire file downloaded
By no means should you modify another user's privileges

On the other hand, a relative clause is not inverted, while it oftens is in other languages:

Look at the date from which this log starts

The words "first" or "last" precede a numeral, not the other way around:

The first eight characters must be unique
In the last two instances, you were wrong

When a past participle is used as an adjective, is is generally placed after the noun it qualifies, not before:

The year used is the current one

Adverbs denoting the notion of time slip in between an auxiliary and a main verb:

This has always been the case
This incident must never happen again

The indefinite article "a" or "an" must be inserted between adverbs of quantity made of several words (for instance, "part of" or "too large") and the qualified noun. If the indication of quantity is given by an adjective, by contrast, the word order is article-adjective-noun. Compare and contrast the following:

Multi-word adverb of quantity Single-word adjective of quantity

This may result in a large file This may result in too large a data array

You can access a partial record You can access part of a record

Multi-word adverb of quantity	Single-word adjective of quantity
This may result in a large file	This may result in too large a data array
You can access a partial record	You can access part of a record