Subject–object–verb

In linguistic typology, a subject–object–verb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate oranges". The label is often used for ergative languages such as Adyghe and Basque that do not have subjects but have an agent–object–verb order.

Incidence

Word
order
English
equivalent
Proportion
of languages
Example
languages
SOV "She him loves." 45% 45
 
Sanskrit, Latin, Japanese, Ancient Greek, Korean, Hindi, Proto-Indo-European
SVO "She loves him." 42% 42
 
English, Hausa, Mandarin, Russian
VSO "Loves she him." 9% 9
 
Biblical Hebrew, Irish, Filipino, Tuareg
VOS "Loves him she." 3% 3
 
Malagasy, Baure, Proto-Austronesian
OVS "Him loves she." 1% 1
 
Apalaí, Hixkaryana
OSV "Him she loves." 0% Warao

Frequency distribution of word order in languages
surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in 1980s[1][2] (

)

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 75% of natural languages with a preferred order).[3]

Languages that have SOV structure include Ainu, Akkadian, Amharic, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Burushaski, Dakota, Dogon languages, Elamite, Ancient Greek, Hajong, Hindi, Hittite, Hopi, Ijoid languages, Itelmen, Japanese, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Korean, Kurdish, Classical Latin, Lakota, Manchu, Mande languages, Marathi, Mongolian, Navajo, Nepali, Newari, Nivkh, Nobiin, Pāli, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Quechua, Senufo languages, Seri, Sicilian, Sindhi, Sinhalese and most other Indo-Iranian languages, Somali and virtually all other Cushitic languages, Sumerian, Tibetan and nearly all other Tibeto-Burman languages, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and all other Dravidian languages, Tigrinya, Turkic languages, Turkish, Urdu, almost all Uto-Aztecan languages, Uzbek, Welsh, Yukaghir, and virtually all Caucasian languages.

Standard Mandarin is SVO, but for simple sentences with a clear context, word order is flexible enough to allow for SOV or OSV. German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas über Karl" ("I say something about Karl") is in SVO word order. When a noun clause marker like "dass" or "wer" (in English, "that" or "who" respectively) is used, the verb appears at the end of the sentence for the word order SOV. A possible example in SOV word order would be "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." (A literal English translation would be "I say that Karl a belt bought has.") This is V2 word order.

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."[4]

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 language in terms of their type of marking:

  1. 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.
  2. 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. Because adjectives in this type are much more verb-like than in dependent-marking SOV languages, 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.

Examples

Albanian

Sentence Agimi librin e mori.
Words Agimi librin e mori
Gloss Agimi the book took
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Agimi took the book. (It was Agimi who took the book)

Azerbaijani

Sentence Yusif almanı yedi .
Words Yusif almanı yedi
Gloss Joseph the apple ate
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Joseph ate the apple.

Basque

Basque does not have subjects but has an agent–object–verb order in transitive clauses:

Sentence Enekok sagarra ekarri du.
Words Enekok sagarra ekarri du
Gloss Eneko (+ERGative) the apple brought (to bring) AUX has
Parts Agent Object Verb
Translation Eneko has brought the apple

Bengali

Sentence আমি ভাত খাই
Words আমি ভাত খাই
IPA ami
ami
bʰat
bhat
kʰai
khai
Gloss I (subj) rice (obj) eat (pres)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I eat rice.

Burmese

Burmese is an analytic language.

Sentence ငါက စက္ကူဘူးကို ဖွင့်တယ်။
Words ငါ က စက္ကူဘူး ကို ဖွင့် တယ်
IPA ŋà
nga
ɡa̰
ga.
seʔkù bú
se'ku bu:
ɡò
gou
pʰwìɴ
hpwin.

de
Gloss I (subj) box (obj) open (pres)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I open the box.

Chinese

Generally, Chinese varieties all feature SVO word order. However, especially in Standard Mandarin, SOV is tolerated as well. There is even a special structure to form an SOV sentence.

Note that SOV is generally used to emphasize the object, such as in this case, where the apple is a very specific apple.

Sentence 我把苹果吃了.
Words 苹果 吃了.
Transliteration píngguǒ chīle
Gloss I sign for moving object before the verb apple ate
Parts Subject Sign Object Verb
Translation I ate the apple. (The apple we were talking about earlier)

Dutch

Dutch is SOV combined with V2 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 like SVO, non-finite verbs (participles, infinitives) and compound verbs follow this pattern:

Sentence Ik wil je helpen.
Parts Ik wil je helpen
Gloss I want you to help
Parts subject fin.verb object nonfin.verb
Translation I want to help you.

Pure SOV order is found in subordinate clauses:

Sentence Ik zei dat ik je wil helpen.
Parts Ik zei dat ik je wil helpen
Gloss I said that I you want to help
Parts subject fin.verb subord. conj. subject object fin.verb nonfin.verb
Translation I said that I want to help you.

French

The French language usually uses a subject–verb–object structure, but when using most pronouns, it places enclitics before the verb. That is sometimes mistaken for SOV word order.

Sentence Nous les avons.
Parts Nous les-avons.
Gloss We them/those-have
Parts Subject Object-Verb
Translation We have those/them

German

German is SOV combined with V2 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 like SVO, compound verbs follow this pattern:

Sentence
Words Er hat einen Apfel gegessen
Gloss He has an apple eaten
Parts Subject Auxiliary Object Verb
Translation He ate an apple.

The word order changes also depending on whether the phrase is a main clause or a dependent clause. In dependent clauses, the word order is always entirely SOV (cf. also Inversion):

Subordinate Clause
Words Weil Horst einen Apfel gegessen hat, ...
Gloss Because Horst an apple eaten has, ...
Parts Conjunction Subject Object Verb Auxiliary
Translation Because Horst ate an apple, ...

Greek (Classical)

Sentence ὁ ἀνὴρ τòν παĩδα φιλέει.
Words ὁ ανήρ (hŏ anḗr) τòν παĩδα (tờn pẵida) φιλέει (philéei).
Gloss The man the child loves.
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation The man loves the child.

Hajong

Sentence Moi hugrâmkhasae.
Words Moi hugrâm kha sae.
Gloss I guava (accusative) eat (past tense, indicative)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I ate the guava.

'râ' is a particle that indicates the accusative case and 'sae' indicates past tense declarative. Here, 'â' is pronounced as the 'i' in 'girl' and 'ae' is pronounced as the 'ay' in 'say'.

Hungarian

Hungarian word 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.

Sentence Pista kenyeret szeletel.
Words Pista kenyeret szeletel
Gloss Pista bread slices
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation  Pista slices bread.

Italian

The Italian language usually uses a subject–verb–object structure, but when an enclitic pronoun is used, this comes before the verb and the auxiliary.

Sentence Io la sto mangiando
Parts Io la sto mangiando
Gloss I it am eating
Parts Subject Object Auxiliary Verb
Translation I am eating it

Japanese

Sentence 開けます。
Words 開けます。
Romanization watashi ga hako o akemasu.
Gloss I (sub) box (obj) open(polite)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I (am the one who) open(s) the box.

The markers が (ga) and を (o) are, respectively, subject and object markers for the words that precede them. Technically, the sentence could be translated a number of ways ("I open a box", "It is I who open the boxes", etc.), but this does not affect the SOV analysis.

Japanese has some flexibility in word order, so an OSV is also possible. (開けます。)

Kannada

Sentence ನಾನು ಮನೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿದೇನು .
Words ನಾನು ಮನೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿದೇನು
Transliteration Naanu mane kaTTidEnu
Gloss I the home built
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I built the home.

Kazakh

Sentence Дастан кітап оқыды.
Words Дастан кітап оқыды
Transliteration Dastan kitap oqıdı
Gloss Dastan a book read
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Dastan read a book.

Kyrgyz

Sentence Биз алма жедик
Words Бизалмажедик
Transliteration Bizalmajedik
Gloss Wean appleate
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation We ate an apple

Kashmiri

Like German and Dutch the Indo-Aryan language Kashmiri is SOV combined with V2 word order. 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 like SVO, whereas auxiliated verbs are discontinuous and adhere to this pattern:

Sentence کور چہے ثونٹہ کہیوان
Transcription kuur chhi tsũũţh khyevaan
Gloss girl is apples eating
Parts Subject Auxiliary Object Verb
Translation The girl is eating apples.

Since Kashmiri is a V2 language if the word tsũũţh 'apple' comes first then the subject kuur 'girl' must follow the auxiliary chhi 'is': tsũũţh chhi kuur khyevaan [Lit. "Apples is girl eating."]

The word order changes also depending on whether the phrase is in a main clause or in certain kinds of dependent clause. For instance, in relative clauses, the word order is SOVAux:

Main clause + Subordinate Clause میے ان سوہ کور یوس ثونٹہ کہیوان چہے
Transcription => mye eny swa kuur => ywas tsũũţh khyevaan chhi
Gloss => I brought that girl => who apples eating is
Parts Main clause => Subject Verb Object Relative clause => Subject Object Verb Auxiliary
Translation I brought the girl who is eating apples.

Korean

Sentence 상자다.
Words 상자 여(ㄹ) -ㄴ다.
Romanization nae ga sangja reul yeo(l) -nda.
Gloss I (nominative) box (accusative) open (present tense, indicative)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I open the box.

'가 (ga)/이 (i)' is a particle that indicates the nominative case. '를 (reul)/을 (eul)' is a particle that indicates the accusative case. '-ㄴ다 (nda)' indicates present tense declarative. The consonant 'ㄹ (l)' in the verb stem (열-) is dropped before the suffix.

※ Here, '나 (na, I (pronoun))' is changed to '내 (nae)' before '가 (ga)'.

Latin

Classical Latin was an inflected language and had a very flexible word order and sentence structure, but the most usual word order was SOV.

Sentence Servus puellam amat
Words Servus puellam amat
Gloss Slave (nom) girl (acc) loves
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation The slave loves the girl.

Again, there are multiple valid translations (such as "a slave") that do not affect the overall analysis.

Marathi

Sentence कसाई बकरा मारतो.
Words कसाई बकरा मारतो
Transliteration kasāi bakrā mārto
Gloss butcher goat kills
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation The butcher slaughters the goat.

Mongolian

Sentence Би ном уншив.
Words Би ном уншив
Transliteration Bi nom unshiv
Gloss I a book read
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I read a book.

Ossetian

Sentence Алан чиныг кæсы.
Words Алан чиныг кæсы
Transliteration Alan činyg kæsy
Gloss Alan book reads
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Alan reads a book.

Pashto

Sentence .زه کار کوم
Words زه کار کوم
Gloss زه (Subject Pronoun) کار (Noun) کوم (verb)
Transliteration kaar kawum
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I do the work.

Persian

Sentence .من سیب می‌خورم
Words منسیبمی‌خورم
Gloss I apple eat (first person present tense)
Transliteration man seeb mikhoram
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I am eating an apple.

Portuguese

Portuguese is an SVO language, but it has some SOV constructs, though they tend to sound excessively formal or bookish in Brazil (as do other constructs that are more prominent in Portugal), never being used colloquially in said country – it can even be said that it is foreign to Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese, in the case of the theory that Brazil's spoken and informal written registers present a diglossia.

When using a temporal adverb, optionally with the negative:

Nós já [não] os temos. Literally: We already [not] them have. Meaning: (Positive) We already have them. (Negative) We do not have them anymore.

Nós ainda [não] os temos. Literally: We still [not] them have. Meaning: (Positive) We still have them. (Negative) We have do not them yet..

When answering the phone: Sim, sou eu. Literally: Yes, am I. Meaning: Yes, it's I

SVO form: Sou eu mesmo/mesma, literally "It's me [indeed]".

There is an infix construction for the future and conditional tenses:

Eu fá-lo-ei amanhã. Literally: I do-it-will tomorrow. Meaning: I will do it tomorrow.

SVO form: Eu hei-de fazê-lo amanhã or eu farei o mesmo amanhã

On composed sentences, it is also allowed the SOV order for the last part in some situations like:

Ela não os comeu, mas comi-os eu. Literally: She did not eat them, but ate them I. Meaning: She did not eat them, but I did.

SVO form: Ela não comeu os mesmos, mas eu comi [a eles].

Russian

Russian is an inflected language and very flexible in word order; it allows all possible word combinations.

Sentence Она его любит
Words Она его любит
Transliteration aná yevó lyúbit
Gloss she (nom) him (acc) loves
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation She loves him

for example: Она любит его, любит его oна, любит oна его, and virtually all re-orderings of Russian sentence order are correct although this is often used in different situations to emphasize particular constituents of a sentence. Who loves him? 'she' is the one who loves him (emphatic meaning). In this way any part of the sentence can be emphasized without changing basic meaning (a convenience created by Russian's noun case system)

Spanish

The Spanish language usually uses a subject–verb–object structure, but when an enclitic pronoun is used, this comes before the verb and the auxiliary. Sometimes, in dual-verb constructions involving the infinitive and the gerund, the enclitic pronoun can be put before both verbs, or attached to the end of the second verb.

Sentence Yo lo como
Parts Yo lo como
Gloss I it eat
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I eat it

Tamil

Sentence நான் தான் பெட்டியை திறப்பேன்.
Words நான் தான் பெட்டி யை திறப்பேன்。
Romanization Nān tān peṭṭi yai tiṟappēn.
Gloss I (nominative) box (accusative) open(indicative verb)
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I (am the one who) open(s) the box.

The தான் (tān) and யை (yai) are, respectively, nominative and accusative markers for the subject and object that respectively precede them. The தான் (tān) is optional in the Tamil language. The sentence may literally be translated as 'I [who am] the box [which] open shall.'

The sentence may also be translated, although less frequently, as பெட்டியை நான் தான் திறப்பேன் (Peṭṭiyai nāṉ tāṉ tiṟappēn), or simply, பெட்டியை திறப்பேன் (Peṭṭiyai tiṟappēn) as Tamil is a null-subject language because the indicative verb at the end of the word indicates the 1st person subject. This follows the object-subject-verb (OSV) pattern.

Telugu

Sentence నేను పార్టీకి వెళ్తున్నాను.
Words నేను పార్టీకి వెళ్తున్నాను.
Transliteration Nēnu pārtīki veḷtunnānu.
Gloss I to party am going.
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I am going to party.

Turkish

Sentence Yusuf elmayı yedi.
Words Yusuf elmayı yedi
Gloss Joseph the apple ate
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Joseph ate the apple.

Like all other Turkic languages, Turkish has flexibility in word order, so any order is possible. For example, in addition to the SOV order above, this sentence could also be constructed as OSV (Elmayı Yusuf yedi.), OVS (Elmayı yedi Yusuf.), VSO (Yedi Yusuf elmayı.), VOS (Yedi elmayı Yusuf.), or SVO (Yusuf yedi elmayı.), but these other orders carry a connotation of emphasis of importance on either the subject, object, or the verb. The SOV order is the "default" one that does not connote particular emphasis on any part of the sentence.

Udmurt

Sentence мoн книгa лыӟӥcькo.
Words мoн книгa лыӟӥcькo.
Gloss I a book to read
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I am reading a book.

Yi

Sentence ꉢꌧꅪꋠ.
Words ꌧꅪ ꋠ .
Romaniz. ngasyp-hnizze.
Gloss I (an) apple (to) eat.
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation I eat an apple.

Uzbek

Sentence Anvar Xivaga ketdi.
Words Anvar Xivaga ketdi.
Gloss Anvar (nom) to Khiva (dat) went
Parts Subject Object Verb
Translation Anvar went to Khiva.

The marker "ga" is a dative case marker for the object that precedes it. Due to flexibility in word order in Uzbek, it is possible to transform the sentence into OSV as well ("Xivaga Anvar ketdi" / "It was Anvar who went to Khiva").

See also

References

  1. Introducing English Linguistics International Student Edition by Charles F. Meyer
  2. Russell Tomlin, "Basic Word Order: Functional Principles", Croom Helm, London, 1986, page 22
  3. Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55967-7.
  4. Andreas Fischer, "'With this ring I thee wed': The verbs to wed and to marry in the history of English". Language History and Linguistic Modelling: A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th Birthday. Ed. Raymond Hickey and Stanislaw Puppel. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 101 (Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), pp.467-81
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