Verb–object–subject
| Linguistic typology |
|---|
| Morphological |
| Morphosyntactic |
| Word order |
| Lexicon |
| Word order | English equivalent | Proportion of languages | Example languages | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SOV | "She him loves." | 45% | |
Proto-Indo-European, Sanskrit, Hindi, Ancient Greek, Latin, French, Japanese |
| SVO | "She loves him." | 42% | |
English, Hausa, Indonesian, Mandarin, Russian |
| VSO | "Loves she him." | 9% | |
Biblical Hebrew, Arabic, Irish, Filipino, Tuareg |
| VOS | "Loves him she." | 3% | |
Malagasy, Baure, Proto-Austronesian |
| OVS | "Him loves she." | 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] (
)
In linguistic typology, a verb–object–subject or verb–object–agent language – commonly abbreviated VOS or VOA – is one in which the most-typical sentences arrange their elements in that order: "Ate oranges Sam."
Commonly cited examples include Austronesian languages (such as Malagasy, Old Javanese, Toba Batak and Fijian) and Mayan languages (such as Tzotzil). In Hadza the word order VOS is very common, but the default is VSO.
See also
- Subject–object–verb
- Subject–verb–object
- Object–subject–verb
- Object–verb–subject
- Verb–subject–object
- Category:Verb–object–subject languages
References
- ↑ Introducing English Linguistics International Student Edition by Charles F. Meyer
- ↑ Russell Tomlin, "Basic Word Order: Functional Principles", Croom Helm, London, 1986, page 22
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