SOV

SOV, in linguistics, denotes a basic word order in which a sentence’s verb typically appears at the end, with the subject preceding the object. This subject–object–verb arrangement is one of the major global word-order patterns and is especially common in many languages of Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the Americas. In SOV languages, subordinate clauses often precede the main clause, and modifiers such as adjectives, numerals, and relative clauses usually precede the noun they modify. Many SOV languages use postpositions rather than prepositions, marking grammatical relations after nouns rather than before them.

In terms of morphology, SOV languages frequently rely on inflectional or agglutinative systems. Verbs commonly carry tense, aspect, mood, voice, and agreement markers as suffixes, while nouns may bear case endings or connect to postpositional phrases to indicate role and relation. The noun phrase order tends to place modifiers before the noun, and relative clauses typically appear before the noun they modify. The overall head-final tendency of SOV languages also influences how complex sentences are built, with subordinate structures nested before the main verb.

Prominent examples of SOV languages include Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Persian (Farsi), Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Mongolian. These languages vary widely in phonology and syntax, but share the characteristic verb-final base order. While SOV is common globally, some languages exhibit flexible or context-driven variations and may shift word order for emphasis or topic rather than for grammatical necessity.