Subject–object–verb word order

Inlinguistic typology, asubject–object–verb(SOV) language is one in which thesubject,object, andverbof a sentence always or usually appear in that order. IfEnglishwere SOV, "Sam apples ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actualStandard English"Sam ate apples" which issubject–verb–object(SVO).
The term is often loosely used forergative languageslikeAdygheandBasquethat really haveagentsinstead of subjects.
Amongnatural languageswith a word order preference, SOV is the most common type (followed bysubject–verb–object; the two types account for more than 87% of natural languages with a preferred order).
Languages that have SOV structure include
Standard Chineseis generallySVObut commonconstructions with verbal complementsrequire SOV or OSV. SomeRomance languagesare SVO, but when the object is anencliticpronoun, word order allows for SOV (see the examples below).GermanandDutchare considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV ingenerative grammar. They can be considered SOV but withV2 word orderas an overriding rule for thefinite verbinmain clauses, which results in SVO in some cases and SOV in others. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas über Karl" ("I say something about Karl") is in SVO word order. Non-finite verbs are placed at the end, however, since V2 only applies to the finite verb: "Ich will etwas über Karl sagen" ("I want to say something about Karl"). In asubordinate clause, the finite verb is not affected by V2, and also appears at the end of the sentence, resulting in full SOV order: "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." (Word-for-word: "I say that Karl a belt bought has.")
A rare example of SOV word order in English is "I (subject) thee (object) wed (verb)" in the wedding vow "With this ring, I thee wed."
SOV languages have a strong tendency to usepostpositionsrather thanprepositions, to placeauxiliary verbsafter the action verb, to placegenitivenoun phrases before the possessed noun, to place a name before a title orhonorific("James Uncle" and "Johnson Doctor" rather than "Uncle James" and "Doctor Johnson") and to have subordinators appear at the end of subordinate clauses. They have a weaker but significant tendency to placedemonstrativeadjectives before the nouns they modify.Relative clausespreceding the nouns to which they refer usually signals SOV word order, but the reverse does not hold: SOV languages feature prenominal and postnominal relative clauses roughly equally. SOV languages also seem to exhibit a tendency towards using atime–manner–placeordering ofadpositional phrases.
In linguistic typology, one can usefully distinguish two types of SOV languages in terms of their type of marking:
In practice, of course, the distinction between these two types is far from sharp. Many SOV languages are substantiallydouble-markingand tend to exhibit properties intermediate between the two idealised types above.
Many languages that have shifted to SVO word order from earlier SOV retain (at least to an extent) the properties: for example, theFinnishlanguage (high usage of postpositions etc.)
TheEthio-Semitic,CushiticandOmotic languagesgenerally exhibit SOV word order.
Somaligenerally uses the subject–object–verb structure when speaking formally.
Basque in short sentences, usually, subject or agent–object–verb; in long sentences, usually, subject or agent-verb-objects:
The Dravidian languages commonly exhibit or prefer SOV order.
Tamil being a strongly head-final language, the basic word-order is SOV. However, since it is highly inflected, word order is flexible and is used for pragmatic purposes. That is, fronting a word in a sentence adds emphasis on it; for instance, a VSO order would indicate greater emphasis on the verb, the action, than on the subject or the object. However, such word-orders are highly marked, and the basic order remains SOV.
The Georgian language is not extremely rigid with regards to word order, but is typically either SOV or SVO.
SOV word order is quite common amongIndo-European languages, leading to a common hypothesis that this reflects the original preferred word order of the ancestralProto-Indo-European language. However, the question remains unsettled.
Albanianhas free word order, but generally prefers SVO. SOV occurs only in poetic language.
Armeniangenerally prefers SOV.
Linguistic consensus holds that theProto-Germanic languagehad free word order but preferred SOV. While some Germanic languages (includingEnglishand mostNorth Germanic languages) have transitioned to SVO, SOV remains a feature of some major modernGermanic languages, includingGermanandDutch. However, these modern SOV Germanic languages also exhibitV2 word order, which supersedes the "default" SOV such that many sentences are rendered subject-verb-object.
Dutchis SOV combined withV2 word order. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) verb is moved to the second position. Simple verbs look likeSVO, non-finite verbs (participles, infinitives) and compound verbs follow this pattern:
Pure SOV order is found in subordinate clauses:
Germanis SOV combined withV2 word order. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) verb is moved to the second position. Simple verbs look likeSVO, compound verbs follow this pattern:
The word order changes also depending on whether the phrase is amain clauseor adependent clause. In dependent clauses, the word order is always entirely SOV (cf. alsoInversion):
TheGothic language, an extinctEast Germaniclanguage, had free word order, but SOV constructions were common.
Ancient Greek had free word order but generally preferred SOV sentences:
This is distinct fromModern Greek, where SVO is preferred.
Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest known of theIndo-Aryan languages, was an inflected language and very flexible in word order, allowing all possible word combinations. Its descendant, ClassicalSanskrit, shared this feature but generally preferred SOV sentences.
Most later Indo-Aryan languages continue to prefer SOV word order, for example:
Bengali:
Hajong:
reis a particle that indicates the accusative case and 'sei' indicates past tense declarative. Here,eis pronounced as the 'i' in 'girl' and 'ei' is pronounced as the 'ay' in 'say'.
Hindi:
Marathi:
Nepali:
Odia:
Urdu:
This preference is not fixed in all Indo-Aryan languages. Punjabi, for instance, may be characterised as following a Subject—Object—Verb typology overall, but some flexibility is permitted, and this tendency does not follow in sentences involving personal pronouns. Examples are shown here in bothShahmukhi(top, right-to-left) andGurmukhi(bottom, left-to-right). The word forms used reflect those typical of spoken language. For Shahmukhi, vocalised forms with vowel diacritics have been used to explicitly indicate the forms used; in typical writing these are omitted in most words where regular patterns allow this information to be inferred contextually.
The following sentence exhibits the typical SOV word order tendency. The verb phrase is in retrospective perfect participle form, indicating completion of the action, and takes on the feminine plural suffixes in agreement with the gender and number of the object. The subject here is a masculine plural form; in this context it does not require agreement from the verb.
By contrast, in the following sentence the person involved, referred to by a first-person pronoun, is the object rather than the subject. The significance of people as a semantic category takes precedent over the SOV word order tendency, and the person is typically first even in sentences where that person is the object. The pronoun "mainū̃" has the postposition "nū̃" agglutinated to it, approximately meaning "to." Abstract concepts like desires and emotions typically come "to" people as agentive subjects.
Thecopulain Punjabi is extraverbal in function. While it can constitute the predicate of a sentence on its own, it does not enter the verb phrase when used alongside a full lexical verb. Instead, it acts as a marker of existence remote to or near to the situation. Some western dialects such as Pothohari have forms of the copula to indicate occurrence of a situation in the future.
However, some Indo-Aryan languages exhibitV2 word orderin combination with SOV, most prominentlyKashmiri. The non-finite verb (infinitive or participle) remains in final position, but the finite (i.e. inflected) part of the verb appears in second position. Simple verbs look likeSVO, whereas auxiliated verbs are discontinuous and adhere to this pattern:
Given that Kashmiri is aV2 language, if the wordtsũũţh'apple' comes first then the subjectkuur'girl' must follow the auxiliarychhi'is':tsũũţh chhi kuur khyevaan[Lit. "Apples is girl eating."]
Also, the word order changes depending on whether the phrase is in amain clauseor in certain kinds ofdependent clause. For instance, inrelative clauses, the word order is SOVAux:
TheIranian languagesalmost uniformly exhibit SOV word order:
Kurdish(Kurmanji):
Kurdish (Sorani):
Ossetian:
Pashto:
Persian:
Talysh:
The Zaza language usually uses a subject–object-verb structure,but it sometimes uses subject-verb-object too.
Classical Latinwas aninflected languageand had a very flexible word order and sentence structure, but the most usual word order in formal prose was SOV.
Again, there are multiple valid translations (such as "a slave") that do not affect the overall analysis.
Although their common ancestor Latin had free word order and preferred SOV, the modernRomance languageslost theLatin declensionthat enabled free word order and in general require subject-verb-object structures. However, remnants of SOV remain, particularly thecliticobject pronounscommon in Romance grammar. For instance, inFrench:
AndPortuguese:
And inSpanish:
Contrast this with the SVO structure of a sentence with an explicit object (again in Spanish):
The SOV tendency can also be seen when usingauxiliary verbs, e.g. inItalian:
SOV also appears in Portuguese using a temporal adverb, optionally with the negative:
And in a suffix construction for thefutureandconditionaltenses:
SVO form:Eu hei-de fazê-lo amanhãoreu farei o mesmo amanhã
The basic principle in Japanese word order is that modifiers come before what they modify. For example, in the sentence "こんな夢を見た。" (Konna yume o mita),the direct object "こんな夢" (this sort of dream) modifies the verb "見た" (saw, or in this casehad). Beyond this, the order of the elements in a sentence is relatively free. However, because the topic/subject is typically found in sentence-initial position and the verb is typically in sentence-final position, Japanese is considered an SOV language.
A closely related quality of the language is that it is broadlyhead-final.
–가/–이-ga/-iis a particle that indicates the subject. –를/–을-(r)eulis a particle that indicates the object.나na"I" is changed to내–nae-before –가-ga, and the verb stem열–yeol-is changed to여–yeo-before –ㄴ다-nda.
Quechuan languages have standard SOV word order. The following example is from Bolivian Quechua.
SOV is believed to have been the "default" order of theprotolanguageof theSino-Tibetan family. Most Sino-Tibetan languages exhibit SOV order; however, the largest sub-branch of the family, the Sinitic or Chinese languages, are uniformly SVO, with some SOV-derived features.
Burmeseis ananalytic language.
Generally,Chinese varietiesall feature SVO word order. However, especially inStandard Mandarin, SOV is tolerated as well. There is even a special particle把 (bǎ)used to form an SOV sentence.
The following example that uses 把 is controversially labelled as SOV. 把 may be interpreted as a verb, meaning "to hold". However, it does not mean to hold something literally or physically. Rather, the object is held figuratively, and then another verb is acted on the object.
SOV structure is widely used in railway contact in order to clarify the objective of the order.
TheTungusic languagesexhibit SOV word order by default.
TheTurkic languagesall exhibit flexibility in word order, so any order is possible. However, the SOV order is the "default" one that does not connote particular emphasis on any part of the sentence; alternate orders are possible, but are used for emphasis. For instance, inTurkish, the following is the "default" way of saying "Murat ate the apple":
However, this sentence could also be constructed as OSV (Elmayı Murat yedi.), OVS (Elmayı yedi Murat.), VSO (Yedi Murat elmayı.), VOS (Yedi elmayı Murat.), or SVO (Murat yedi elmayı.), to indicate the relative importance of the subject, object, or the verb.
Similarly, inUzbekthis SOV sentence is neutral:
(The marker "ga" is a dative case marker for the object that precedes it.)
But the sentence can be changed into OSV as well ("Xivaga Anvar ketdi") to change the emphasis ("It was Anvar who went to Khiva").
The same holds inKazakh, where the below is neutral:
But an OSV sentence (кітапты Дастан оқыды;it was Dastan who read the book) can be used to change the emphasis.
Other examples of SOV sentences in Turkic:
Azerbaijani:
Kyrgyz:
The "idealized" profile of theUralic languageshas subject-verb-object word order. However, some Uralic languages, including the most widely spoken (Hungarian) prefer SOV.
Theprotolanguageof the Uralic language family is understood to have exhibited SOV order.
Hungarianword order is free, although the meaning slightly changes. Almost all permutations of the following sample are valid, but with stress on different parts of the meaning.