subject–object–verb
Sign in to saveAlso known as SOV language, subject-object-verb, SOV
language in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in SOV order
~33 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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 apples ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate apples" which is subject–verb–object (SVO).
The term is often loosely used for ergative languages like Adyghe and Basque that in fact have agents instead of subjects.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “subject–object–verb” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.