VERB SUBJECT OBJECT

'Verb Subject Object' ('VSO') is a term in linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these constituents in neutral expressions: ''Ate Sam oranges''. The word order roughly corresponds to the order of symbols in (non-reverse) Polish notation or the S-expressions of the Lisp programming language.
Examples of languages with VSO word order include the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, that is Gaelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx) and Brythonic languages (Welsh, Cornish and Breton), Classic Maya, Tagalog, Hawaiian, Pangasinan, Māori, and Tongan. The Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Ancient Egyptian, are often characterized by VSO order; the Semitic languages (particularly in their ancient forms) such as Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, Phoenician, Canaanite, Ge'ez, commonly used VSO.
Even though Arabic originally had VSO word order, it is now usually more understood with SVO, especially Egyptian Arabic and Moroccan Arabic.

Contents

Inversion into VSO

See also

Inversion into VSO

There are many languages which switch from SVO (Subject Verb Object) order to VSO order with different constructions, usually for emphasis. For example, sentences in English poetry can sometimes be found to have a VSO order; French and Spanish questions may reverse the order of the subject and verb into the VSO order (although this is not required: compare "Did Sam eat oranges?" to "Sam ate oranges?"), and English questions do this too, to an extent (with the verb "to be", and some uses of "to do"). Arabic sentences use a SVO order or a VSO order depending on whether the subject or the verb is more important.
Non-VSO languages that use VSO word order in questions include many Germanic languages, French, and Spanish.

See also

★ Subject Object Verb

★ Subject Verb Object

★ Object Subject Verb

★ Object Verb Subject

★ Verb Object Subject