PIE syntax and word-order

[petegray]

>In Latin there is good evidence that adjectives (and similar modifiers)
>placed before the noun provide some form of prominence or salience to the
>adjective.

In Latin the adjective is regularly put before a complex nominal group, and
after a simple noun.  The reason is to indicate the limits of the noun
phrase;  an adjective not immediately followed by a noun in agreement is
left "hanging", and closure of the syntactic relationship implies closure of
the phrase.   For example the patterns:  adj - genitive - noun and
adjective-preposition-noun are very much commoner than other orders for
those combinations of words - though exceptions can of course be found.

Peter