Dear anyone,
Your duolingo forum registration isn't automaticaly transferred to duome forum so in order to join duome forums you need to register with your existing or any other username and email; in any case it's advised that you choose a new password for the forum.
~ Duome Team

[grammar] Word Order

User avatar
dakanga

[grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

Different languages arrange the words in a sentence in different ways. This is also called the syntax of the language.

In English, the common/typical word order is Subject + Verb + Other. (SVO)
Different languages use different word order. English speakers may be familiar with this concept through the way "Yoda" speaks in Star Wars. As 0.5.0_t.he_3E.A2, has pointed out.
p.s. it is worthwhile checking out the comment by 0.5.0_t.he_3E.A2, and the mnemonics they mention. And even perhaps upvote their comment ;P ! i.e. here and here

Yoda most often constructs his sentences in "OSV" order.
i.e. His sentences start with the Object of the sentence. Then the Subject of the sentence. And the last part is Verb, the doing word/action/statement.
So Yoda says :
"Much to learn, you still have."
While in English we would often more naturally say this as :
"You still have a lot to learn."

![]( A Verb is a doing, action word.

For quite a number of writers, they describe this "O" as the "Object" of the sentence. Though there appears to be an increasing trend to now describe this as "Other". Please feel free to discuss this.

This is a reference I have been wishing to find for some time now. And have finally chosen to start to collate it myself. Focussing on languages taught by Duolingo. Please also feel free to discuss nuances of any of these broad classifications.

Here is my table in construction. Last edited 19 Oct, 2020.
Note: This is in "standard/common/current" usage in "academic" type text, and not in poetry ... " Please note, most living languages will ... change the order in some instances, to aid emphasis and poetic potency and understanding.

SVO VSO SOV OVS other
Arabic (MSA) 2 VSO
Brazilian Portuguese SVO
Czech SVO
Danish SVO
Dutch SVO
English SVO
Esperanto case
French SVO
German SVO OVS
Greek SVO 2 case
Hawaiian VSO flexible
Hebrew SVO
High Valyrian SOV
Hindi SOV
Indonesian SVO
Irish VSO
Italian SVO
Japanese SOV
Korean SOV
Latin 2 2 SOV 2 flexible
Mandarin Chinese SVO
Norwegian Bokmål SVO
Polish SVO
Romanian SVO
Russian SVO flexible
Scottish Gaelic VSO
Spanish SVO
Swahili SVO flexible
Swedish SVO variations
Turkish SOV
Ukrainian SVO
Vietnamese SVO
Welsh VSO

The "2" is to express that this is also a common word order used for this language.

###Other resources:

p.s. I will continue to expand and revise the data in this post, as I do for other reference posts of mine.
n.b. soon to be edited again to incorporate some great language relevant input from comments below. Thank you for you patience. I am not paid for this, but passionate about language learning, and the wonders of this global community.

... though I am rewarded by your appropriate enthusiasm and participation in such grammar focused discussions. Also, I am rewarded by how you are kind and supportive of others.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by NicholasM.15

I would like to point out that certain object pronouns go before a verb in Romance languages.

For example: in Spanish; "se", "la", "lo", "las", "los", "te", "me", "le", and "les" all go before the verb.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by Judit294350

And Hungarian uses the idea of focus (topic, focus, verb, other) - so the verb can go anywhere depended on the nuance of what you are saying.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by
ARCANA-MVSA

In German, SVO or OVS can be seen (it's flexible so both are possible, basically so long as the verb remains in second place). Das habe ich gemacht. Whichever one gets used depends on what you're looking to emphasize.

Latin is primarily SOV, but it's also very flexible, being able to take on almost any order according to what one wishes to emphasize. When the verb esse (to be) is used, it's primarily SVO.

Great start otherwise! :D

Volgav vitsenanieff nivya kevach varatsach.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by MustafaOuz526752

Great post! Thanks for sharing. I want to add that while the standard word order in Turkish is SOV, all the other forms are possible as well.

We have a case system that nominals are marked by suffixes according to their function in a sentence so that we can clearly understand what is going on, regardless of what position words are put.

As a rule, the emphasis lies either on the word before a verb or on the verb if the sentence doesn't end with a verb. So if you want to emphasize the subject, the order is OSV; if you want to emphasize the verb, the order is either VSO, VOS, OVS, or SVO.

As a sidenote, V(S)O is the one I use most in everyday talk.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by Oso-the-Bear

Great post, daKanga. The subject "is verb-ing" the object. Let me add a category for Yoda - OSV - The object, the subject is verbing.

commend by daKanga:
That is a very good type of mnomonic (memory technique) to use.

Thanks for sharing 0.5.0_t.he_3E.A2 !

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by kurokumo4

It's not a simple choise to classify a language with these categories only. You have soo many exceptions sharing the columns, because there are some other language features, like the V2 order for example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by
ARCANA-MVSA

More specific aspects of syntax actually don't factor in as much when talking about just basic word order (not influenced by clauses or questions or anything of that sort). German, for instance, is primarily SVO and OVS, but it would also have an SOV order if V2 order was also considered, because dependent clauses usually end up getting their verbs kicked to the end of the phrase - something which you do not see in independent clauses.

(Fun fact, though - even when accounting for V2 order, German is still primarily SVO or OVS word order due to the dependent clause as a whole being considered one element of the sentence, which fits into the category of Other ... The verb really does love its second position. :)

So it's not as hard of a task as it sounds, when one cuts it down to basic word order. :)

Edit: I think the key word here is primarily. Certainly languages have a wide variety of word orders they can use depending on what is being conveyed, but we're focusing on the most common word order - what's used for basic statements and the like. I hope that clarifies.

Volgav vitsenanieff nivya kevach varatsach.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

[deactivated user]
Great info! Thanks!

I haven't read all the comments though....

In some languages, such as German there is also the inversion. In German for example:

Ich esse den Apfel. SVO.

Isst Vater den Apfel? VSO?

Ich habe Hunger. Deshalb esse ich den Apfel. SVO. VSO.

Ich esse den Apfel, weil ich Hunger habe. SVO, SOV.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by MartaZamar

Latvian also follows SVO order. :)

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

Back to overview ![Duo16](https://imgur.com/33veJF5.png)

In different languages sentences are constructed in different ways.

In English we normally structure our sentences by :

The dog sat on the mat.

"The dog" is the subject of the sentence.
"sat on" is the action, or verb part of the sentence.
and "the mat" is other part of the sentence - which is the object, or the item being acted upon.

However other languages will use different ways to order their sentences, to express meaning.

Could someone else also have a go at explaining this with examples ?

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by Judit294350

When you learn a new language it is not just a case of learning new words and slotting them into the same place - except French which is very like English. English and French are SVO languages - Subject Verb Object/Other. So when you see "dog bites man" you know the first word is what is doing something (dog), the next bit is what the dog is doing (biting), and the last word is what is being bitten (man).

Some languages are SOV - so you would say "dog man bites". Others are OVS - to get the same sense you say "man bites dog".

Then there are ones like Hungarian, where depending on what exactly you are saying you can say any three - or even "man dog bites" or "bites man dog" or "bites dog man". (You tell who is doing what depending on the ending of the nouns.)

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by verna120098

In Latin about the earliest lesson had "Puella rosas portat" or the girl carries roses. Subject Puella, (the) girl; rosas, roses, portat, (he, she, it) carries. Subject Direct Object, Verb. Oh heavenly days in 3rd year translating Cicero's long-winded "periodic" sentences "Where is the verb?"

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by Oso-the-Bear

In English the subject "verbs" the object.

In Japanese, the subject, the object is being "verbed" by.

In Scottish Gaelic, "verb"ing is what the subject does to the object.

I'm using clunky extra English prepositions and connecting words to connect the subject object and verb for clarity, but the point is that with the different standard word orders in different languages, you wouldn't necessarily need all of these extra words and the meaning would become clear just from the standard word order in each language.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by ARCANA-MVSA

To add to this: I see him. Standard English, I (subject) see (verb) him (object), or SVO.

German: I see him (SVO) or him see I (OVS).

Turkish: I him see (SOV).

Welsh: See I him (VSO).

Klingon: Him see I (OVS).

Just to illustrate how that all works. :) It gets more complicated once you go into things like adverbs, dative, ablative (if a language has it), and so on. But this is the basic framework.

Volgav vitsenanieff nivya kevach varatsach.

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

originally posted by Saydobid_Xusanov

Our order in Uzbek is also similar to Turkish.

For example, in English, we say "I want to eat food".

In Uzbek, it becomes: "I food eat want".

Men ovqat yeyishni xohlayman.

Each colour indicates a different kind of grammatical additions and words.

see: https://archive.ph/XJxT5

User avatar
dakanga

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by dakanga »

ahhhh - so this is an example of "case"?

Where the different grammatical additions to the words explains how ...
how to make sense of the word sentence/concept/communication.

And how the "order" of the words in the sentence do not matter.

Yet the grammatical additions - they DO matter .

They explain how something interacted/connected with something else.

Have I got that correct ?

edited: perhaps others have different words to describe this, that of "case" ?

User avatar
trackerwannabe
United States of America

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by trackerwannabe »

I wish I knew how to move posts, because this post (re: SOV in English) seems more at home here.

ASTN
Russia

Re: [grammar] Word Order

Post by ASTN »

I'd say that for a Japanese it's more like 'verb-comes-last' rule. Or more correctly 'conjugatable-comes-last' since there are no requirements to have a verb in a sentence in Japanese (though it's debatable...). The word order here depends more on topicality/focus rather than grammatical role of nouns.
私はケーキを食べた - lit. " I - cake - ate " (I ate the/a cake)
ケーキは私が食べた - lit. " Cake - I - ate " (I ate the/a cake)
or even
ケーキを食べた、私は - lit. "Cake-ate, I" (I ate the/a cake)

I guess word order stops being that important if you have some other ways to mark roles of words in a sentence. For example, in Japanese they use particles, in other languages they can have case inflections etc. Although informal Japanese being highly contextual might give some troubles to learners since the above example could look like this (realistically):
ケーキ食べた 
without any particles or subject. Though, unless we're talking about some Cake-like-monster eating people, the meaning is more or less clear.


In Russian the word order is a matter of style rather than grammar. Regarding a situation and context you can have all possible combinations:
Я съел торт - lit. "I - ate - cake" (SVO)
Я торт съел - lit. "I - cake - ate" (SOV)
Торт съел я - lit. "Cake - ate - I" (OVS)
Торт я съел - lit. "Cake - I - ate" (OSV)
Съел я торт - lit. "Ate - I - cake" (VSO)
Съел торт я - lit. "Ate - cake - I" (VOS)
(I ate the/a cake)

While SVO being the "default" word order for a simple declarative sentence without any emphasis.

Post Reply

Return to “Discussions”