Object Subject Verb

Object Subject Verb Structure

Before we take a look at the object-subject-verb structure, here's a quick reminder of the elements of a sentence:

• Subject = a person or thing that carries out an action, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

• Verb = the action, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

• Object = a person or thing that receives the action of the verb, e.g., "Lauren read a book."

In sentences that follow the object-subject-verb structure, the object comes first. This is then followed by the subject and, lastly, the verb. For example, instead of saying, "Greg ate pizza," you would say, "Pizza Greg ate." To native English speakers, this may seem quite unusual, as we typically follow the subject-verb-object structure instead!

Object Subject Verb Languages

You may be wondering, which languages use the object-subject-verb structure?

Very few languages use object-subject-verb as their natural word order. A natural word order (also known as an unmarked word order) refers to the dominant, basic word order we use without having to add or change anything for emphasis. In English, the natural word order is subject-verb-object.

The languages that do use the object-subject-verb order naturally include:

• Xavante

• Jamamadi

• Apurinã

• Warao

• Urubú-Kapoor

• Jupda

• Kayabí

• Nadëb

• Mizo and other Kuki-Chin-Mizo Languages

We will be looking at some of these in more detail later on!

So what about the other languages that use object-subject-verb?

The languages that do not use object-subject-verb as their natural word order tend to only use it when they need to add emphasis to a certain part of the sentence (usually the object, but sometimes the subject). This is known as a marked word order, as it differs from the natural word order. Such languages include:

• Chinese

• Korean

• Japanese

• Portuguese

• Hungarian

• Finnish

• Hebrew

• Arabic

• Turkish

• Malayalam

• Nahuatl

As object-subject-verb is only used in marked sentences by the above languages, this means the natural word order will be something different.

Object Subject Verb Examples

Let's first take a look at a couple of examples from languages that use object-subject-verb as their natural (unmarked) sentence structure:

Natural/Unmarked Word Order

The object-subject-verb word order is rarely used as a natural/unmarked word order. Here are just a few examples:

Apurinã

Apurinã is an Indigenous language spoken by the Apurinã people of the Amazon basin (South America). As of 2006, there were around 2800 native speakers of Apurinã.

Take the following sentence:

Another Apurinã example is:

Urubú-Kaapor

Urubú-Kaapor is a language belonging to the Tupí language family, spoken by the Ka'apor people of Brazil. As of 2006, there were around 600 native speakers.

Nadëb

Nadëb is a Nadahup language (specifically the Macuan sub-family) spoken in the Brazilian Amazon. As of 2011, there were around 370 native speakers.

Xavante

Xavante is a Macro-Gê language spoken by the Xavante people in the surrounding areas of Eastern Mato Grosso (Brazil). As of 2006, there were around 9600 native speakers.

Fig. 1 - Most languages that use object-subject-verb as their natural word order are spoken in or around Brazil.

Marked Word Order

Now let's take a look at some languages that use object-subject-verb as a marked word order:

Finnish

The Finnish word order is very lenient, and object-subject-verb is often used to emphasize the object in a sentence. Take the following sentence:

Another example is:

Korean

The typical word order of Korean is subject-object-verb. In some cases, however, object-subject-verb is used. It is important to know that, as well as subjects and objects, Korean also has "topics." The topic of a sentence is the main focus of the sentence and can refer to either the subject or the object. To differentiate between subject, object, and topic, each one uses different particles (also known as markers) at the end of the word:

Subject: 이 / 가

Object: 을 / 를

Topic: 은 / 는

When an object is the topic of a sentence, it is placed at the beginning. When this happens, the object-subject-verb structure is followed. For example:

Japanese

Following on from Korean, Japanese is almost exactly the same:

Hungarian

Unlike the previous examples, Hungarian uses object-subject-verb to add emphasis to the subject of the sentence. For example:

Turkish

Turkish also uses object-subject-verb to emphasize the subject. For example:

Subject Verb Object English

Let's move away from Object- Subject- Verb now and take a look at the typical word order of English, which is:

Subject Verb Object

For example:

Subject-verb-object is the second most common word order across all languages - the first being subject-object-verb, which is used in languages like Korean, German, and French.

Subject Verb Object Sentences

What would subject-verb-object sentences look like if they followed the object-subject-verb word order instead?

Take a look at some examples of English sentences, first written in the typical subject-verb-object word order and then in the object-subject-verb order:

And finally...

What better way to end an article than give a quote from an iconic movie character, Yoda from Star Wars:

Do you notice anything about this quote? It uses the object-subject-verb structure!

Fig. 2 - Yoda speaks in a very unique way, using a range of sentence structures.