SYNTAX

Word order



Back to contents












































WORD ORDER

There are six possible basic word orders that a language may have: SOV, SVO, VSO, OSV, OVS, and VOS (S=subject, V=verb, O=object). Old Esmic is VSO. Observe:

It turned into a pig.
gukhlappagrad gogzhuth gat pigbuttet

|gukhlappagrad| |gogzhuth| |gat| |pigbuttet|
|---became----| |---it---| |-a-| |---pig---|
|----verb-----| |-subject| |----object-----|
Technically, the word order is Verb [Ergative] Absolutive, but this generally works out to VSO.