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Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Some quick testing with Google Translate suggests that Spanish might follow the same rule as well. My fir
by Scriptor 18y ago
Actually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Some quick testing with Google Translate suggests that Spanish might follow the same rule as well.
My first language, Bengali, an Indo-European language spoken in Bangladesh and thus distantly related to Latin, is S-O-V. I'm assuming from this that Hindi and other Indian subcontinental languages are as well.
I think S-O-V makes sense when communicating visually. Say someone kicks a ball. Initially you see a person and a ball. Then you see the person kick it. The action comes after the presence of the two objects. You don't see a person, see him kick, and only then see the ball.
- maw 18y agoActually, French is S-O-V when you're using pronouns. Can you share an example? Admittedly, my French isn't too hot, but I'm curious. I'd be interested in an example Spanish (which I'm a lot better at than French) too.
- Scriptor 18y agoMy French is a bit rusty, but here are some examples I can think of right now: Je le mange - I eat it. Je tu le donne - I give it to you. 'le' means 'it', and 'tu' means 'you'. So literally, the first example would be "I it eat", and the second would be "I to you it give". I don't know Spanish very well, but I pulled this off of Google translate: Yo lo vi - I saw it I'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'.
- maw 18y agoI'm assuming 'lo' is 'it', and 'vi' is 'saw'. Duh! Yes, you are of course correct. My excuse for forgetting: familiarity might not always breed contempt, but sometimes it breeds a real lack of observation! As an aside, archaic (and archaically styled) Spanish is often SVO even with object pronouns. So you'll see things like "díjole" in Quijote. (It's "te" and not "tu" in French, btw. Tu's only used as a subject.)