Object Subject Verb

Different languages across the world follow certain word orders when creating sentences. There are six main word orders in all languages:

• SOV - subject, object, verb
• SVO - subject, verb, object
• VSO - verb, subject, object
• VOS - verb, object, subject
• OVS - object, verb, subject
• OSV - object, subject, verb

The focus of this article - and the most uncommon word order across all languages - is: Object Subject Verb.

Let's take a look in more detail!

Object Subject Verb Structure

Before we take a look at the object-subject-verb structure, here's a quick reminder of the elements of a sentence:

• Subject = a person or thing that carries out an action, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

• Verb = the action, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

• Object = a person or thing that receives the action of the verb, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

In sentences that follow the object-subject-verb structure, the object comes first. This is then followed by the subject and, lastly, the verb. For example, instead of saying, "Greg ate pizza," you would say, "Pizza Greg ate." To native English speakers, this may seem quite unusual, as we typically follow the subject-verb-object structure instead!

Object Subject Verb Languages

You may be wondering, which languages use the object-subject-verb structure?

Very few languages use object-subject-verb as their natural word order. A natural word order (also known as an unmarked word order) refers to the dominant, basic word order we use without having to add or change anything for emphasis. In English, the natural word order is subject-verb-object.

The languages that do use the object-subject-verb order naturally include:

• Xavante

• Jamamadi

• Apurinã

• Warao

• Urubú-Kapoor

• Jupda

• Kayabí

• Nadëb

• Mizo and other Kuki-Chin-Mizo Languages

We will be looking at some of these in more detail later on!

So what about the other languages that use object-subject-verb?

The languages that do not use object-subject-verb as their natural word order tend to only use it when they need to add emphasis to a certain part of the sentence (usually the object, but sometimes the subject). This is known as a marked word order, as it differs from the natural word order. Such languages include:

• Chinese

• Korean

• Japanese

• Portuguese

• Hungarian

• Finnish

• Hebrew

• Arabic

• Turkish

• Malayalam

• Nahuatl

As object-subject-verb is only used in marked sentences by the above languages, this means the natural word order will be something different.

Object Subject Verb Examples

Let's first take a look at a couple of examples from languages that use object-subject-verb as their natural (unmarked) sentence structure:

The object-subject-verb word order is rarely used as a natural/unmarked word order. Here are just a few examples:

Apurinã

Apurinã is an Indigenous language spoken by the Apurinã people of the Amazon basin (South America). As of 2006, there were around 2800 native speakers of Apurinã.

Take the following sentence:

Another Apurinã example is:

Urubú-Kaapor

Urubú-Kaapor is a language belonging to the Tupí language family, spoken by the Ka'apor people of Brazil. As of 2006, there were around 600 native speakers.

Nadëb

Subject-verb-object is the second most common word order across all languages - the first being subject-object-verb, which is used in languages like Korean, German, and French.

Subject Verb Object Sentences

What would subject-verb-object sentences look like if they followed the object-subject-verb word order instead?

Take a look at some examples of English sentences, first written in the typical subject-verb-object word order and then in the object-subject-verb order: