SVOordning

SVO-ordning, or SVO order, is a basic sentence structure in which the canonical arrangement of the core constituents of a simple transitive clause is Subject, Verb, Object. It is the most common basic word order among the world’s languages. In SVO languages, the subject typically precedes the verb, which in turn follows the object, though additional elements such as adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, or subordinate clauses can modify this arrangement.

Examples of SVO languages include English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, and many others. For instance: English — The cat chased the mouse; Spanish — El gato persiguió al ratón; Mandarin Chinese — 猫 咬 了 人 (Māo yǎo le rén, literally “cat bit person”). In many of these languages, the verb directly connects the subject and object without heavy reliance on case marking to signal grammatical roles.

Variations and interactions: while the basic order is SVO, languages may allow fronting or topicalization that temporarily places a non-subject element before the verb, especially in questions or focus constructions. Some languages with strong inflection still maintain SVO as the default, whereas others may exhibit flexibility in complex sentences or with ditransitive verbs (S V O1 O2).

Relation to other word orders: SVO is one of the six canonical basic orders proposed in typology (the others being SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS). The choice of order often correlates with the language’s morphological system and syntactic cues.