Tags · Structure
Word order
The sequence of subject, object, verb and their dependents.
Topics with this tag
Pattern
In what order do languages arrange subject, object, and verb?
Two of the six logically possible orders dominate the world’s languages — SOV (Japanese, Hindi, Turkish) and SVO (English, Mandarin, Romance). The rest are rare, or set by information structure rather than a fixed template.
Grammatical relationsWord orderWorldwide
Basic word order →
Pattern
Do adpositions come before or after the noun phrase?
Adposition order tracks verb–object order as a strong tendency — after the noun in OV languages (Japanese tēburu no ue ni), before it in VO (English on the table). Exceptions recur across families: Persian and Tajik combine OV order with prepositions, while SVO-leaning Finnish keeps its Uralic postpositions.
Spatial relationWord orderAdpositionWorldwide
Preposition or postposition? →