In linguistic typology, the subject–object–verb SOV language is one in which a subject, object, as well as verb of a sentence always or ordinarily appear in that order. whether English were SOV, "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate oranges" which is subject–verb–object SVO.
The term is often generally used for ergative languages like Adyghe and Basque that really construct agents instead of subjects.
Among natural languages with a word ordering preference, SOV is the nearly common type followed by subject–verb–object; the two classification account for more than 75% of natural languages with a preferred order.
Languages that pretend SOV sorting include any Indo-Iranian languages Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Pāli, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Urdu, Zazaki, Kurdish, Ainu, Akkadian, Amharic, Armenian, Assyrian, Aymara, Basque, Burmese, Burushaski, Cherokee, Dakota, Dogon languages, Elamite, Ancient Greek, Hajong, Hittite, Hopi, Ijoid languages, Itelmen, Japanese, Korean, Classical Latin, Lakota, Manchu, Mande languages, Meeteilon, Mongolian, Navajo, Newari, Nivkh, Nobiin, Omaha, Quechua, Senufo languages, Seri, Sicilian, Sunuwar, Somali as well as virtually all other Cushitic languages, Sumerian, Tibetan and near all other Tibeto-Burman languages, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and all other Dravidian languages, Tigrinya, Turkic languages, almost all Uto-Aztecan languages, Yukaghir, Zazaki and virtually all Caucasian languages.
constructions with verbal complements require SOV or OSV. Some Romance languages are SVO, but when the object is an enclitic pronoun, word order lets for SOV see the examples below. German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. They can be considered SOV but with V2 word order as an overriding leadership for the finite verb in main clauses, which results in SVO in some cases and SOV in others. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas über Karl" "I say something about Karl" is in SVO word order. Non-finite verbs are placed at the end, however, since V2 only applies to the finite verb: "Ich will etwas über Karl sagen" "I want to say something about Karl". In a subordinate clause, the finite verb is non affected by V2, and also appears at the end of the sentence, resulting in full SOV order: "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." Word-for-word: "I say that Karl a belt bought has."
A rare example of SOV word order in English is "I talked thee thing wed verb" in the wedding vow "With this ring, I thee wed."