Verb Subject Object

Verb Subject Object—commonly used in its abbreviated form VSO—is a term in linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these constitutents in neutral expressions: Ate Sam oranges. The word order roughly corresponds to the order of symbols in (non-reverse) Polish notation or the S-expressions of the Lisp programming language.

Examples of languages with VSO word order include Welsh, Arabic, Tagalog and Tongan. Non-VSO languages that use VSO word order in questions include Dutch and French.

Dutch uses VSO order in regular questions, and SVO order only (and optionally) for questions based on neutral sentences, as statements of incredulity ("Sam at sinaasappels." "Sam at sinaasappels?", "Sam ate oranges?")

The other permutations according to importance

• Subject Object Verb (e.g. Japanese, Persian, Latin)
• Subject Verb Object (e.g. English, German, Kiswahili, Chinese)
• Verb Object Subject (e.g. Fijian)
• Object Subject Verb (e.g. Xavante)
• Object Verb Subject (e.g., Klingon)