Subject Verb Object
(Redirected from SVO language)
Categories: Linguistic typology
In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages are classified according to the dominant sequence of these constituents of sentences. This sequence is the second most common. English, Chinese, the Romance languages, Russian, Kiswahili, and Indonesian are examples of languages that follow this pattern.
An example of this order in English is:
- Sam ate the oranges.
In this, Sam is the subject, ate is the verb, the oranges is the object.
Some languages are more complicated: in German and in Dutch, SVO is often considered basic since this is the unmarked order in declarative main clauses. However, any other constituent may come before the verb instead of the subject which then must follow immediately after the verb. Furthermore, in certain subordinated sentences as well as in infinitive phrases, the verb comes last, as do removable parts of the verb in declarative main clauses. This is called V2 word order.
In Hebrew, word order is free, but alternative forms are rarely used. The most dominant sequence is Verb Subject Object. Negation or questions do not usually require an alternative sequence. For Example: סאם אכל תפוז, Sam ate an orange and ?סאם אכל תפוז, Did Sam eat an orange? differ only by the intonation when said and by the question mark when written.
See also
eo:Subjekto Verbo Objekto
es:Sujeto Verbo Objeto
fr:SVO
pl:SVO
ja:SVO型