In linguistic typology,–object– a verb–object–subject or verb–object–agent language, which is 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 "Drank cocktail Sam." 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 is considered to have 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 most Austronesian languages have an ergative-absolutive system of case marking.
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) Arabic is a language that is primarily SVO order. However, VSO also occurs from subject adjunction. 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?