In linguistic typology, a verb–object–subject or verb–object–agent language, commonly abbreviated VOS or VOA, is one in which most sentences arrange their elements in that order. That would be the equivalent in English to "Ate apples Sam" to mean "Sam ate apples". The relatively rare default word order accounts for only 3% of the world's languages. It is the fourth-most common default word order among the world's languages out of the six. It is a more common default permutation than OVS and OSV but is significantly rarer than SOV (as in Hindi and Japanese), SVO (as in English and Mandarin), and VSO (as in Filipino and Irish). Families in which all or many of their languages are VOS include the following:

the Algonquian family (including Ojibwa) the Arawakan family (including Baure and Terêna) the Austronesian family (including Dusun, Malagasy, Toba Batak, Tukang Besi, Palauan, Gilbertese, Fijian and Tsou) the Chumash family (including Inoseño Chumash) the Mayan family (including Huastec, Yucatec, Mopán, Lacondón, Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chuj, Tojolabal, Cakchiquel, Tzutujil, Sacapultec, Pocomam, Pocomchí and Kekchi) the Otomanguean family (including Mezquital Otomi and Highland Otomi) the Salishan family (including Coeur d'Alene and Twana)

Incidence

Typology VOS word order is the fourth-most-common of the world's languages, and has verb-initial word order, like VSO. Very few languages have a fixed VOS word order, most primarily in the Austronesian and Mayan language families. Many verb-initial languages exhibit a flexible word order (such as St’át’imcets, Chamorro, and Tongan), alternating between VOS and VSO. VOS and VSO are usually classified as verb-initial because they share many similar properties, such as the absence of the verb "have" and predicate-initial grammar.

Though not as universal, many verb-initial languages also have ergative clauses. For instance, most Mayan languages have an ergative-absolutive system of verb agreement and some Austronesian languages have an ergative-absolutive system of case marking (see also symmetrical voice).

Occurrence VOS occurs in many languages, including Austronesian languages (such as Malagasy, Old Javanese, Toba Batak, Dusun, and Fijian), Mayan languages (such as Kaqchikel and Tzotzil), and even Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, the last of which has a very free word order with inversions.

In Hadza, the default order is VSO, but VOS is very common as well. This is also the case for some Salishan languages.

In Arabic, the typical order is VSO, but VOS is an option and in some sentences mandatory.

Arabic (special cases) Classical Arabic has free word order due to its use of case endings to mark grammatical case, but VSO sentences are the default. Modern Standard Arabic is more likely to use SVO order (under the influence of colloquial varieties which prefer or require it due to the loss of case endings). However, VOS order is sometimes used in both Classical and Modern Standard Arabic in special cases.

The first table (note that Arabic is written from right to left) will illustrate the SVO form of the sentence, the second table will illustrate the VSO form, and the third table will illustrate the VOS form:

The first table is meant to give a basic understanding of the general form of sentences in Arabic.

The second table displays a VSO sentence in which the verb appears at the beginning of the sentence and is followed by the subject and the object. Such a sentence is produced by moving the verb to the empty CP, which is the sister of the IP, and results in the production from SVO to VOS. The subject (the teacher) uses the nominative case, and the object (the lesson) uses the accusative case.

The third table displays a VOS sentence. At first glance, that process seems very similar to the VSO word order, but the reality is rather different. Rather than the V moving forward, the S actually moves from the beginning position of SVO to the end position of VOS. That is because of a process known as subject adjunction in which the subject may be unmentioned. Here is an example of subject adjunction:

Context: *The teacher has taught a class and read a specific lesson. Both speakers are wary that either a male or female teacher read a specific lesson.

Question: "Who read the lesson?

Response: He read the lesson/The teacher read the lesson

Based on the context provided, both speakers are wary of a specific lesson taking place and refer to a set of entities being a male and a female teacher. To differentiate between both entities, the use of an anaphoric expression matching in gender results in the capability to differentiate between them. One of the qualities of Arabic verbal morphology is the immediate integration of gender and plurality in the verb. As a result, the subject no longer needs to be mentioned since there is an anaphora attached to the verb. Since the subject has been moved to the end of the sentence, the property of extended projection principle must be fulfilled since there is no specifier. The specifier of the inflectional phrase is thus PRO. The subject (the teacher) uses the nominative case, and the object (the lesson) uses an accusative case.

Baure Baure is an Arawakan language that also follows verb-initial word order. One of Baure's primary features is the importance in agreement of phi features. This example illustrates not only the verb-object-subject order but also the affixes for each verb:

That sentence displays a transitive verb with markers, indicating agreement in phi features for the subject and the object. The analysis of each affix is as follows:

Pi (1): The "Pi" refers to the second-person singular, indicating that the sentence involves direct conversation. One may assume that the person being identified is "you." Ri: The "Ri" refers to a third-person entity that is feminine. The sentence states "take her to the..." and so the "Ri" acts like the pronoun "her." Pi (2): The "Pi" of the second word refers to the same person with whom is directly conversed, "you." Čo: The "čo" refers to the applied form since it matches the suffix of the first verb, which refers to "her." However, in the sentence, it contributes to no semantic meaning.

Cantonese (special cases) Despite being a SVO language, there is evidence to suggest that Cantonese uses VOS word order in some cases, such as in casual speech or relative clauses.

Relative clause Unlike English, which places a relative clause (RC) after the head noun that it modifies, Cantonese is very unusual among SVO languages by placing relative clauses before head nouns and by having prenominal relative clauses, which cause a VOS word order, as is seen in most subject-gapped relative clauses.Chan, Angel & Matthews, Stephen & Yip, Virginia. (2011). The acquisition of relative clauses in Cantonese and Mandarin. 10.1075/tilar.8.10cha. Object-gapped relative clauses do not follow a VOS word order.

Subject-gapped RCs and object-gapped RCs in English:

Subject-gapped RC: SentenceThemousethat'skissingthechickenPartsSubjectVerbObjectHead Noun and RC GapHead nounRelative Clause The head noun, "mouse," is placed before the relative clause (postnominal RC) in a subject-gapped RC in English. That is not the case in Cantonese and Mandarin in which head nouns are always placed after the RC (prenominal RC).

Object-gapped RC: SentenceThechickenthatthemouse'skissingPartsObjectSubjectVerbHead Noun and RC GapHead nounRelative Clause In object-gapped RCs, the object is placed before the relative clause in English.

Example of subject-gapped RC in Cantonese Source: Gloss Head Noun and RC Gap Relative Clause Head NounTranslation The mouse that kisses the chicken.

A subject-gapped RC behaves differently in Cantonese from English by being after the head noun (prenominal RC), which always yields a VOS order. It is extremely rare for SVO languages to adopt a prenominal RC structure. In a sample of 756 languages, only 5 languages have that VOS combination (less than 0.01%), one of which is Cantonese.Dryer, M 2005. The relationship between the order of object and verb and the order of relative clause and non. In The World Altas of Language Structures, M. Hapselmath, M. Dryer, D. Gil, & B. Comrie (eds), Chapter 96, Oxford: OUP

Casual speech In casual speech, Cantonese-speakers often produce a VOS sentence in answering a question.

Example Here is a typical response for a question such as "你食咗飯未呀?", which translates to "did you eat yet?" in English. Sentence食咗飯啦我Romanizationsik6zo2faan6laa1ngo5Glossatericesentence-final particlemePartsVerbObjectSubjectTranslationI ate rice.

Ch'ol Ch'ol is another ergative Mayan language that is one of the Ch'olan-Tseltalan and has VOS as its basic word order. Subjects, objects, and possessors (nominal arguments) may be omitted.

Clemens and Coon propose that the language has three paths that motivate three types of VOS clauses:

Subjects contained in the high topic position after the verbs Phonologically-heavy subjects are NP-shifted Bare NP objects undergo prosodic reordering

Ch'ol objects in a VOS order are generally not full DPs, or the sentence is ungrammatical. The order is derived as VSO if the object is a full DP, as is shown in the table:

If the postverbal argument in the example above were a bare NP (without a determiner), instead of a proper name, there would have been a natural interpretation of the VOS order.

Coeur d'Alene Coeur d’Alene is a Salishan language that has VOS as its dominant word order but does use word order to distinguish subject nouns from object nouns or agent nouns from patient nouns. Verb-transitiveIndirect objectDirect object(Agent-)Subjecttšiɫtsxʷää banxʷaa mimšxʷa 'aa djənhe gave it to himthe Benthe boxby John“John gave the box to Ben” Verb-passiveDirect ObjectSubjectAgent (non-subject)itši᷄ɫtəmxʷamimšxʷä bänxʷa ˀa djənhe is being giventhe boxthe Benby John“Ben is being given the box by John”

European Portuguese Portuguese is a Western Romance language spoken in many places around the globe: Portugal, Brazil, Macau, etc. The language is split into European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. European Portuguese is said to have a very flexible word order, and one of its grammatical possibilities is VOS.

Halkomelem Halkomelem, an aboriginal language in British Columbia, has the same basic characteristics the other Salish languages by being inherently VSO. However, VOS is also sometimes possible. While some speakers do not accept VOS as grammatical, others allow it depending on the context. VOS may occur if there are two direct noun phrases in a clause, and the object is inanimate. Also, VOS is used if the content of the phrase disambiguates the agent from the patient:

The sentences below indicate that the object in a VOS sentence in Halkomelem is interpreted in its base position (VSO) for the purposes of binding theory.

Italian (special case) Italian is most commonly a SVO language, but inversion can occur. If the subject may appear before the verb, it may appear also after the verb. VSO and VOS order, however, are notably rare, especially the latter.

Kaqchikel Kaqchikel is an ergative and head-marking Mayan language in Guatemala. There is no case marking on the subject or the object. Instead, the verb classifies the person and numeric (plural or singular) agreement of the subjects and objects. Kaqchikel's basic structure is VOS, but the language allows for other word orders such as SVO. Since the language is head-marking, a sentence focuses on the subject that is before the verb. A sentence may be either VOS or VSO if switching the subject and the object semantically changes the meaning, but VOS is more common. An example is shown in the table below: SentenceX-∅-u-chöyrichäj / ajanelriajanel / chäjGlossCP-ABS3sg-ERG3sg-cutDETpine.tree / carpenterDETcarpenter / pine.treePartsVerbObject / SubjectSubject / ObjectTranslationThe carpenter cut the pine tree.

Malagasy