Word order is part of syntax, which is part of grammar. Word order may be different in different languages. For example, English "I play tennis only sometimes" would be in German "Ich spiele nur manchmal Tennis", literally "I play only sometimes tennis". In Norwegian, the same sentence would be "Jeg spiller bare tennis noen ganger" ("I play tennis only sometimes").
In Portuguese, the sentence could be "Eu só jogo tênis algumas vezes" ("I only play tennis sometimes), but word order can be changed to "Eu jogo tênis só algumas vezes" ("I play tennis only sometimes"). However, "Eu jogo só tênis algumas vezes" is not allowed ("I play only tennis sometimes") because the meaning would be changed.
In English, a simple sentence with a verb (an action), subject (who or what is doing the action), and an object (to whom or what the action is done) is written with a subject-verb-object word order (SVO). For example, in the sentence "Robert opens the door", "Robert" is the subject, "opens" is the verb and "door" is the object. SVO is the second-most common word order among all languages and is used in 42% of them. Examples are Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia, Spanish, French, Italian, Thai and Vietnamese. While some of the above languages can use other word orders, such as SOV and VSO, they use SVO for the simplest sentences.
In other languages, sentences can use other word orders. Consider "Robert opens the door". In English, changing the word order to "The door opens Robert" would change the meaning of the sentence. In Latin, however, "Robertus ianuam aperit" and "ianuam Robertus aperit" mean the same. "Ianuam" is in the accusative case and so it is the direct object and "Robertus" the subject. Changing the cases of the words, however, to "Robertem ianua aperit" would change the meaning of the sentence: "ianua" is now in the nominative case and so it is the subject and "Robertum" the object.
The subject-object-verb (SOV) word order is the one that is used by the greatest number of distinct languages, 45% of them. It is especially common in the theoretical language family that is known as the Altaic language family, which includes many languages such as Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and the Turkic languages.
In Japanese, for example, a simple sentence uses SOV. In other words, the sentence "Robert opens the door" becomes "Robert the door opens". Such languages often use postpositions, which act like prepositions but appear after content words rather than before them, to show the role of a word in the sentence. The sample sentence "Robert opens the door" would be in Japanese ロバートはドアを開ける "Robāto-wa doa-o akeru" in which は "wa" as in ロバートは "Robāto-wa" shows that ロバート "Robāto (Robert)" is the topic of the sentence, and を "o" as in ドアを "doa-o" shows that ドア "doa" is the direct object of the sentence. Around 45% of all languages are SOV languages.
The verb-subject-object (VSO) word order is the third-most common word order in world languages. There are far fewer VSO languages than SVO and SOV languages, and only 9% of them are VSO. Language groups in which VSO is common include Afroasiatic languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, and Celtic languages, such as Irish, Welsh and Cornish. In VSO languages, "Robert opens the door" would be "Opens Robert the door". Spanish sentences are usually SVO, but VSO is also common. In Spanish, the example above can be as "Roberto abre la puerta" (Robert opens the door) or "Abre Roberto la puerta" (Opens Robert the door).
Aside from SVO, SOV, and VSO, other kinds of word orders are rather uncommon. VOS word order makes up at around 3% of all languages, and languages that begin with the object (OVS and OSV) are extremely few, each around 1-0% percent each.
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was an American politician. He was the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Before he became president, he was the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989 (under the Ronald Reagan administration), an ambassador, a congressman, and Director of Central Intelligence. He was married to Barbara Bush from 1945 until her death in 2018. His children include 43rd President of the United States George W. Bush, former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush, and Dorothy Bush Koch. He was an Episcopalian.
On November 25, 2017, Bush was the longest-lived U.S. President. He passed the 93 years and 165 days lifespan of Gerald Ford, who died on December 26, 2006.
On November 30, 2018, Bush died at his home in Houston, Texas at the age of 94.
Bush was born on June 12, 1924 in 173 Adam Street, Milton, Massachusetts. His father was politician Prescott Bush. He studied at Yale University. In June 1943, Bush became the youngest pilot in the United States Navy at the time.
Bush served in the United States Navy from 1942 until 1945. During WWII, his plane was shot down. He won the Air Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He married Barbara Pierce in 1945. They had six children.
Bush worked for Zapata Oil in Texas and was a politician in Texas, running for the Senate in 1964, but losing to Ralph Yarborough and later again in 1970, though losing again to Lloyd Bentsen.
He was later a House Representative. He was also Republican Party Chairman and tried the vice presidency, with the support of such Congressional conservatives as Senator Barry Goldwater after Nixon resigned and Ford took office, but lost to liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller in 1974. In 1980, Bush also ran against Ronald Reagan for the Republican Party's candidacy for President but lost. He was then named Republican Vice Presidential candidate by Reagan after Reagan defeated him. Reagan and Bush were elected President and Vice President that year.
During World War II, Bush was a crewman on a TBM Avenger. He had survived many crashes and sunk a Japanese ship. He later became a diplomat and head of the CIA.
After being Ronald Reagan's vice president, Bush was elected president in 1988 by defeating Michael Dukakis. While he was president, the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union fell apart. He was known for his failed promise speech "".
In 1990, Bush's off-hand comments about broccoli caused a minor political controversy. In 1992, he visited Kiichi Miyazawa when he vomited on his lap and soon fainted during a dinner feast. Hours later, Bush made a comment that he was suffering from the flu.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in order to steal their supplies of oil, Bush led the United States and many other countries to protect Kuwait. The conflict was called the Gulf War. He also invaded Panama to remove Manuel Noreiga, who was guilty of drug trafficking.
At his home, Bush also signed in important laws, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act. However, the country suffered from a recession. This was embarrassing and many people believe this was the reason he lost the presidential election of 1992 to Bill Clinton.
Bush resided on a ranch in Houston, Texas with his family. After his presidency, he supported John McCain and his son George W. Bush. He supported Mitt Romney and Rick Perry for president. He attended the opening of the USS "George H.W. Bush", a naval ship named after him. He traveled with his son to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
On February 15, 2011, Bush was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama.
He was present at his son's presidential library opening ceremony on April 25, 2013. In July 2013, Bush had his head shaved in a show of support for the two-year-old son of a member of his security detail, who had leukemia. He is the most recent president that was a veteran during World War II.
Bush sent a letter to Donald Trump in January 2017 to inform him of his (Bush's) poor health that he would not be able to attend Trump's inauguration on January 20 and gave his best wishes.