Subject–object–verb word order

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.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.