science

Subject–object–verb word order

Subject–object–verb word order is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Subject–object–verb word order rather than just read about it. In short: In linguistic typology, a subject–object–verb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence always or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, "Sam apples ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate apples" which is subject–verb–object (SVO).

Key takeaways

Subject–object–verb word order belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Subject–object–verb word order to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Subject–object–verb word order from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In linguistic typology, a subject–object–verb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence always or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, "Sam apples ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate apples" which is subject–verb–object (SVO). The term is often loosely used for ergative languages like Adyghe and Basque that in fact have agents instead of subjects.

Incidence

Among natural languages with a word order preference, SOV is the most common type (followed by subject–verb–object; the two types account for more than 87% of natural languages with a preferred order). Languages that have SOV structure include:

Other languages allow for an SOV structure under certain conditions:

Standard Chinese is generally SVO but common constructions with verbal complements require SOV or OSV. Some Romance languages are SVO, but when the object is an enclitic pronoun, word order allows for SOV. German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. They can be considered SOV but with V2 word order as an overriding rule for the finite verb in main clauses, which results in SVO in some cases and VSO 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 a subordinate clause, the finite verb is not affected by V2, and also appears at the end of the sentence, resulting in full SOV order: "Nun sage ich ihr, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." (Word-for-word: "Now say I [to] her 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."

Properties SOV languages have a strong tendency to use postpositions rather than prepositions, to place auxiliary verbs after the action verb, to place genitive noun phrases before the possessed noun, to place a name before a title or honorific ("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 place demonstrative adjectives before the nouns they modify. Relative clauses preceding 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 a time–manner–place ordering of adpositional phrases. In linguistic typology, one can usefully distinguish two types of SOV languages in terms of their type of marking:

dependent-marking has case markers to distinguish the subject and the object, which allows it to use the variant OSV word order without ambiguity. This type usually places adjectives and numerals before the nouns they modify, and is exclusively suffixing without prefixes. SOV languages of this first type include Japanese and Tamil. head-marking distinguishes subject and object by affixes on the verb rather than markers on the nouns. It also differs from the dependent-marking SOV language in using prefixes as well as suffixes, usually for tense and possession. Adjectives in this type are much more verb-like than in dependent-marking SOV languages, and hence they usually follow the nouns. In most SOV languages with a significant level of head-marking or verb-like adjectives, numerals and related quantifiers (like "all", "every") also follow the nouns they modify. Languages of this type include Navajo and Seri. In practice, of course, the distinction between these two types is far from sharp. Many SOV languages are substantially double-marking and 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, the Finnish language, which retains a high usage of postpositions.

Examples

Afroasiatic languages SOV word order is generally found in the Afroasiatic branches of the Ethiopian language area (Cushitic, Omotic, and contemporary Ethio-Semitic).

Afar

Amharic

Oromo

Somali Somali generally uses the subject–object–verb structure when speaking formally.

Tigre

Tigrinya

Wolaitta

Ainu The following example is from Hokkaido Ainu.

Austroasiatic languages Many Austroasiatic languages in South Asia exhibit SOV word order typical to the region.

Santali

Basque Basque in short sentences, usually, subject or agent–object–verb; in long sentences, usually, subject or agent-verb-objects:

Anyway, both in spoken and written Basque, the pure SOV sentence (Eneritzek inork irakurri nahi ez zuen liburua eskatu du) is perfectly valid, just as the OVS order (Inork irakurri nahi ez zuen liburua eskatu du Eneritzek). In questions, fronting the verb in a VSO sentence is also correct (Eskatu (al) du Eneritzek inork irakurri nahi ez zuen liburua?), together with the usual SOV order (Eneritzek inork irakurri nahi ez zuen liburua eskatu (al) du?) or the SVO one (Eneritzek eskatu (al) du inork irakurri nahi ez zuen liburua?).

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages commonly exhibit or prefer SOV order.

Kannada

Malayalam

Pustakam̥ + -e = pustakatte (പുസ്തകത്തെ)

Tamil 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.

Telugu

Georgian The Georgian language is not extremely rigid with regards to word order, but is typically either SOV or SVO.

Greenlandic The default word order for simple clauses in Greenlandic is SOV.

Indo-European languages SOV word order is quite common among Indo-European languages, leading to a common hypothesis that this reflects the original preferred word order of the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language. However, the question remains unsettled.

Albanian Albanian has free word order, but generally prefers SVO. SOV occurs only in poetic language.

Armenian Armenian generally prefers SOV.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Subject–object–verb word order

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Subject–object–verb word order claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Subject–object–verb word order before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Subject–object–verb word order ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Subject–object–verb word order

In research: Subject–object–verb word order appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Subject–object–verb word order in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Subject–object–verb word order is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Subject–object–verb languages, Word order, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Subject–object–verb word order outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Subject–object–verb word order in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Subject–object–verb word order means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Subject–object–verb word order out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Subject–object–verb word order in simple terms?

Why does Subject–object–verb word order matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Subject–object–verb word order?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Subject–object–verb word order.