Subject–object–verb word order
Feature of language / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistic typology, a subject–object–verb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence always or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate oranges" which is subject–verb–object (SVO).
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The term is often loosely used for ergative languages like Adyghe and Basque that really have agents instead of subjects.