Why Does Order Matter in Some Languages and Not Others? Marking Who Did What
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English depends on word order to say who did what to whom, while other languages mark it on the words themselves and order them freely. The trade between the two systems is the same in every language.
The problem every language solves
Any sentence with two participants has to indicate which did the acting and which was acted upon, and languages solve it in two main ways. One is position, where the participant before the verb is understood as the actor and the one after as the affected party, which is how English works and why reversing them reverses the meaning entirely. The other is marking, where endings or particles attached to the words identify their role regardless of where they sit, which is how Latin, Russian, Turkish, Japanese and many others work. Languages relying on marking can order words freely, using position for emphasis and information structure rather than for grammar, which is a capability the positional languages have given up.
The orders languages use
Surveys of the world's languages find a strongly uneven distribution:
- •Subject then object then verb, which is the commonest arrangement worldwide
- •Subject then verb then object, which is next commonest and includes English
- •Verb first orders, which are considerably rarer
- •Object-initial orders, which are very rare and were once thought not to exist
- •Free order languages, where no arrangement is basic and all are grammatical
- •The subject precedes the object in the great majority of languages whatever else varies
What else the order predicts
Basic order correlates with a set of other features, which was one of the first substantial findings in language typology. Languages placing the verb last tend to put modifiers before what they modify, to use postpositions rather than prepositions, and to place relative clauses before the noun. Languages placing the verb before the object tend to do the reverse. The correlations are tendencies rather than laws, with well-documented exceptions, and explanations for them are contested between accounts based on processing efficiency, accounts based on a general principle about the ordering of heads and dependents, and accounts based on historical accident and contact between neighbouring languages. The pattern was described by Joseph Greenberg in 1963 and remains the foundation of the field.
The exceptions that complicate it
The neat division between order languages and marking languages is a simplification and the complications matter. Many languages use both, with English retaining case on pronouns and German marking case while maintaining fairly strict order in main clauses. Some languages mark the relationship on the verb rather than on the participants, agreeing with both subject and object, which frees the nouns entirely and even allows them to be omitted. Free order languages are not entirely free, since the orders available carry different emphasis and some are strongly preferred. Spoken language departs from the written norm considerably in every language studied. And languages with flexible order still show statistical preferences that speakers follow without noticing, which is a different thing from having a grammatical rule.
How systems change
Languages move between the two strategies and English is a documented case. Old English marked case on nouns extensively and had considerably freer word order as a result, and over several centuries the endings eroded through sound changes that weakened unstressed syllables, which removed the marking and forced the language to rely on position instead. Word order became correspondingly rigid, and the modern language preserves case marking only on pronouns, which is why the distinction between who and whom survives at all and why it is being lost. The reverse also happens, with independent words fusing onto others over time and becoming markers. Contact between languages accelerates both processes, and creoles typically emerge with rigid order and little marking.
The takeaway
Either position or marking on the words indicates who acted and who was acted upon, and languages using marking can order words freely for emphasis instead. Verb-final order is commonest worldwide, and the subject precedes the object in the great majority of languages. English lost its case endings through sound change and acquired rigid order in consequence.