In linguistic typology, subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements in unmarked sentences (i.e., sentences in which an unusual word order is not used for emphasis). English is included in this group. An example is "Sam ate apples."
SVO is the second-most common order by number of known languages, after SOV. Together, SVO and SOV account for more than 87% of the world's languages.
The label SVO often includes ergative languages although they do not have nominative subjects.
| Order | Example | Usage | Languages |
|---|
| SOV | "Sam apples ate." | 45% |
45 |
Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ainu, Amharic, Ancient Greek, Akkadian, Armenian, Avar, Aymara, Bambara, Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Burushaski, Chukchi, Cushitic languages, Dravidian languages, Elamite, Hindustani, Hittite, Hopi, Itelmen, Japanese, Kabardian, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Lhasa Tibetan, Manchu, Mongolian, Navajo, Nepali, Nivkh, Pali, Pashto, Persian, Quechua, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tigrinya, Turkic languages, Yukaghir |
| SVO | "Sam ate apples." | 42% |
42 |
Arabic (modern spoken varieties), Chinese, most European languages, Hausa, Hebrew, Indonesian, Pa'O, Kashmiri, Malay, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese |
| VSO | "Ate Sam apples." | 9% |
9 |
Arabic (classical and modern standard), Berber languages, Biblical Hebrew, Celtic languages, Filipino, Geʽez, Kariri, Polynesian languages |
| VOS | "Ate apples Sam." | 3% |
3 |
Algonquian languages, Arawakan languages, Car, Chumash, Fijian, Malagasy, Mayan languages, Otomanguean languages, Qʼeqchiʼ, Salishan languages, Terêna |
| OVS | "Apples ate Sam." | 1% |
1 |
Äiwoo, Hixkaryana, Urarina |
| OSV | "Apples Sam ate." | 0% |
|
Tobati, Warao, Haida |
| Frequency distribution of word order in languages surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in the 1980s () |