Subjectobjectverb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Subjectobjectverb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linguistic typology Morphological Isolating Synthetic Polysynthetic Fusional Agglutinative Morphosyntactic Alignment Accusative Ergative Split ergative Philippine Activestative Tripartite Marked nominative Inverse marking Syntactic pivot Theta role Word order VO languages Subjectverbobject Verbsubjectobject Verbobjectsubject OV languages Subjectobjectverb

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Objectsubjectverb Objectverbsubject Timemannerplace Placemannertime This box: talk edit (//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Linguistic_typology_topics&action=edit)

In linguistic typology, a subjectobjectverb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, then "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate oranges". The label is often used for ergative languages such as Adyghe and Basque that do not have subjects but have an agent objectverb order.

Contents
1 Incidence 2 Properties 3 Examples 3.1 Albanian 3.2 Arabic 3.3 Azerbaijani 3.4 Basque 3.5 Burmese 3.6 Chinese 3.7 Dutch 3.8 French 3.9 German 3.10 Hungarian 3.11 Kazakh 3.12 Italian 3.13 Japanese 3.14 Korean 3.15 Latin 3.16 Pashto 3.17 Pashto

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3.18 Persian 3.19 Russian 3.20 Tamil 3.21 Turkish 3.22 Udmurt 4 See also 5 References

Incidence
Among natural Word English Proportion Example languages with a order equivalent of languages languages word order preference, SOV is SOV "She him loves." 45% Japanese, Latin, Tamil the most common SVO "She loves him." 42% English, Mandarin, Russian type (followed by subjectverbobject; VSO "Loves she him." 9% Hebrew, Irish, Zapotec the two types account VOS "Loves him she." 3% Malagasy, Baure for more than 75% of natural languages OVS "Him loves she." 1% Apalai?, Hixkaryana? with a preferred OSV "Him she loves." 0% Warao order).[3] Languages that have SOV Frequency distribution of word order in languages structure include surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in 1980s.[1][2] Ainu, Akkadian, Amharic, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Burushaski, Dogon languages, Elamite, Ancient Greek, Hindi, Hittite, Hopi, Hungarian, Ijoid languages, Itelmen, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Kurdish, Classical Latin, Manchu, Mande languages, Marathi, Mongolian, Navajo, Nepali, Newari, Nivkh, Nobiin, Pli, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Quechua, Sanskrit, Senufo languages, Seri, Sicilian, Sindhi, Sinhalese and most other Indo-Iranian languages, Somali and virtually all other Cushitic languages, Sumerian, Tagalog, Tibetan and nearly all other Tibeto-Burman languages, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and all other Dravidian languages, Tigrinya, Turkic languages, Turkish, Urdu, Yukaghir, and virtually all Caucasian languages.
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Standard Mandarin is SVO, but for simple sentences with a clear context, word order is exible enough to allow for SOV or OSV. German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas ber Karl" ("I say something about Karl") is in SVO word order. When a noun clause marker like "dass" or "wer" (in English, "that" or "who" respectively) is used, the verb appears at the end of the sentence for the word order SOV. A possible example in SOV word order would be "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Grtel gekauft hat." (A literal English translation would be "I say that Karl a belt bought has.")This is V2 word order. Aharon Dolgopolsky supposes the Proto-Nostratic to be SOV.

Properties
SOV languages have a strong tendency to use postpositions rather than prepositions, to place auxiliary verbs after the action verb, to place genitive noun phrases before the possessed noun, to place a name before a title or honoric ("James Uncle" and "Johnson Doctor" rather than "Uncle James" and "Doctor Johnson"), and to have subordinators appear at the end of subordinate clauses. They have a weaker but signicant tendency to place demonstrative adjectives before the nouns they modify. Relative clauses preceding the nouns to which they refer usually signals SOV word order, but the reverse does not hold: SOV languages feature prenominal and postnominal relative clauses roughly equally. SOV languages also seem to exhibit a tendency towards using a timemannerplace ordering of adpositional phrases. In linguistic typology one can usefully distinguish two types of SOV language in terms of their type of marking: 1. dependent-marking has case markers to distinguish the subject and the object, which allows it to use the variant OSV word order without ambiguity. This type usually places adjectives and numerals before the nouns they modify and is exclusively sufxing without prexes. SOV languages of this rst type include Japanese and Tamil. 2. head-marking distinguishes subject and object by afxes on the verb rather than markers on the nouns. It also differs from the dependent-marking SOV language in using prexes as well as sufxes, usually for tense and possession. Because adjectives in this type are much more verb-like than in dependent-marking SOV languages, they usually follow the nouns. In most SOV languages with a signicant level of head-marking or verb-like adjectives, numerals and related
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quantiers (like "all", "every") also follow the nouns they modify. Languages of this type include Navajo and Seri. In practice, of course, the distinction between these two types is far from sharp. Many SOV languages are substantially double-marking and tend to exhibit properties intermediate between the two idealised types above.

Examples
Albanian
Sentence Agimi librin e mori. Words Agimi librin e mori Gloss Agimi the book took Parts Subject Object Verb Translation Agimi took the book. (It was Agimi who took the book)

Arabic
. ( are ( us+accusative Gloss not+nominative "u" "a" ending) ending) Transliteration m kn iyyn Parts Subject Object Translation They do not worship us. Sentence Words ( they worship+3. masculine plural "un" ending) yabudna Verb

Azerbaijani
Sentence Yusuf alman yedi . Words Yusuf alman yedi Gloss Joseph the apple ate Parts Subject Object Verb Translation Joseph ate the apple.

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Basque
Basque does not have subjects, but has an agentobjectverb order in transitive clauses: Sentence Enekok sagarra ekarri du. Words Enekok sagarra ekarri du Gloss Eneko (+ERGative) the apple brought (to bring) AUX has Parts Subject Object Verb Translation Eneko has brought the apple

Burmese
Burmese is an analytic language. Sentence Words IPA Gloss Parts
nga

a
ga.

sek b
se'ku bu:

gou

pw
hpwin.

d
de

(subj)

box Object

(obj)

open Verb

(pres)

Subject

Translation I open the box.

Chinese
Generally, Chinese languages are all SVO languages. However, especially in Mandarin, SOV is tolerated as well. There is even a special structure to form a SOV sentence. Sentence . Words . Transliteration W b pnggu chle Gloss I sign for moving object before the verb apple ate Parts Subject Sign Object Verb Translation I ate the apple.

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Dutch
Dutch is partly SOV. For simple verbs, it is SVO, but for compound verbs, the inected root is moved to the end of the sentence. That is called the V2 word order. Sentence Wij hebben je geholpen. Parts Wij hebben je geholpen Gloss We have you helped Parts Subject + aux Object inected Verb Translation We helped you

French
The French language usually uses a subjectverbobject structure, but when using most pronouns, it places enclitics before the verb. That is sometimes mistaken for SOV word order. Sentence Nous les avons. Parts Nous les-avons. Gloss We them/those-have Parts Subject Object-Verb Translation We have those/them

German
German is partially SOV. For simple verbs, it is SVO, but for compound verbs, the inected root is moved to the end of the sentence. That is called the V2 word order. Sentence Words Horst hat einen Apfel gegessen Gloss Horst has an apple eaten Parts Subject + aux Object inected Verb Translation Horst ate an apple. The word order changes also depending on whether the phrase is a main clause or a dependent clause. In dependent clauses, the word order is always entirely SOV (cf. also Inversion):
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Sentence Words Weil Horst einen Apfel gegessen hat Gloss Because Horst an apple eaten has Parts Subject Object inected Verb + aux Translation Because Horst ate an apple.

Hungarian
Sentence Words Gloss Parts Translation Pista kenyeret szel. Pista kenyeret szel Pista bread slices Subject Object Verb Pista slices bread.

Kazakh
Sentence . Words Transliteration Dastan kitap oqd Gloss Dastan the book read Parts Subject Object Verb Translation Dastan read the book.

Italian
The Italian language usually uses a subjectverbobject structure. Sentence Io sto mangiando una mela Parts I am Gloss I am Parts Subject Object-Verb Translation I am eating an apple

Japanese

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Sentence Words Gloss Parts

I ga hako o akemasu. Verb

Romanization watashi

(sub) box (obj) open(polite) Object

Subject

Translation I (am the one who) open(s) the box. The markers (ga) and (o) are, respectively, subject and object markers for the words that precede them. Technically, the sentence couldbe translated a number of ways ("I open a box", "It is I who open the boxes", etc.), but this does not affect the SOV analysis. Japanese has some exibility in word order, so an OSV is also possible. ( )

Korean
Sentence Words Gloss Parts . I ga (nominative) Subject sangja box reul yeon . da. Verb

Romanization nae

(accusative) open (indicative) Object

Translation I open the box. ' (ga)/ (i)' is a particle that indicates the nominative case. ' (reul)/ (eul)' is a particle that indicates the accusative case. ' (da)' indicates the declarative. Here, ' (na, I (pronoun))' is changed to ' (nae)' before ' (ga)'.

Latin
Classical Latin was an inected language and had a very exible word order and sentence structure, but the most usual word order was SOV.

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Sentence Words Gloss Parts

Servus puellam amat Servus Subject puellam amat Object Verb Slave (nom) girl (acc) loves

Translation The slave loves the girl. Again, there are multiple valid translations (such as "a slave") that do not affect the overall analysis.

Pashto
Sentence . Words Gloss ( Subject Pronoun) ( Noun) ( verb) Transliteration ze kaar kawum Parts Subject Object Verb Translation I do the work.

Pashto
and what about this? which one is the subject in , grammatically it is correct but semantically wrong|-

Persian
. Sentence Sentence Words Gloss I apple eat (rst person present tense) Transliteration man seeb mikhoram Parts Subject Object Verb Translation I am eating an apple.

Russian
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Russian is an inected language and very exible in word order; it allows all possible word combinations. Sentence Words Gloss Parts Subject Object Verb (nom) (acc)

Translation She loves him

Tamil
Sentence Words # # ' ( +-#. # # tn (nominative) Subject ' ( pei box yai (accusative) Object + -# tiappn. open(indicative verb) Verb

Romanization Nn Gloss Parts I

Translation I (am the one who) open(s) the box. The # (tn) and (yai) are, respectively, nominative and accusative markers for the subject and object that respectively precede them. The # (tn) is optional in the Tamil language. The sentence may literally be translated as 'I [who am] the box [which] open shall.' The sentence may also be translated, although less frequently, as '( # # +-# (Peiyai n t tiappn), or simply, '( +-# (Peiyai tiappn) as Tamil is a null-subject language because the indicative verb at the end of the word indicates the 1st person subject. This follows the object-subject-verb (OSV) pattern.

Turkish
Sentence Yusuf elmay yedi.

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Words Yusuf elmay yedi Gloss Joseph the apple ate Parts Subject Object Verb Translation Joseph ate the apple.

Udmurt
Sentence o a co. Words o a co. Gloss I a book to read Parts Subject Object Verb Translation I am reading a book.

See also
Topic-prominent language Subjectverbobject Objectsubjectverb Objectverbsubject Verbobjectsubject Verbsubjectobject Category:Subjectobjectverb languages

References
1. ^ Introducing English Linguistics International Student Edition by Charles F. Meyer (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MWbrvUiYzSkC&pg=PA36) 2. ^ Russell Tomlin, "Basic Word Order: Functional Principles", Croom Helm, London, 1986, page 22 3. ^ Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55967-7.

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