Discover

'Time Manner Place' (TMP) describes one possible ordering of adpositional phrases in sentences.

★ Example: ... yesterday, by car, to the store.

Linguistic typology has observed that TMP order is common among Subject Object Verb (SOV) languages. Two common SOV languages are Japanese and German. German uses V2 word order in main clauses and other circumstances, but is fundamentally SOV.

An example of TMP in German is:

''Ich''	''fahre''	''heute''	''mit''	''dem''	''Auto''	''nach''	''München''.
I	drive	today	with	the	car	to	Munich.
Today I'm driving to Munich by car.

The temporal phrase ''heute'' (today) comes first,
the manner ''mit dem Auto'' (by car) is second,
and the place, ''nach München'' (to Munich) is third.

The other common order for adpositional phrases is Place Manner Time.
This is exemplified by English and French.

One way to remember the German order is the acronym ''ZAP'':
''Zeit'' (time), ''Art'' (manner), ''Platz'' (place).
Another mnemonic for the German order,
but in the English language,
is the word 'T'e'MP'o.

English and French only use TMP order when the time is mentioned before the verb.
This is common when time, manner, and place are all mentioned in the one sentence.

An example in French is:

''Demain''	''je''	''vais''	''en''	''auto''	''au''	''magasin''.
Tomorrow	I	go	in	car	to	shop.
Tomorrow I'll go by car to the shop.

The temporal phrase ''demain'' (tomorrow) comes first,
the manner ''en auto'' (by car) is second,
and the place, ''au magasin'' (to the shop) is third.

Contents

See also

External links

See also

★ Syntax

External links

★ Word Order in German — Part 1: German Syntax