It’s found that there are three common and equivalent patterns of expressions in natural languages classified according to the position of the key verb (V) of the sentence [Wang, 2013; Wang and Berwick, 2012] known as:
1) The inorder pattern: {S [\]V O}
- e.g.: They | [do not] | like | the news. (as in English, Chinese, …)
2) The postorder pattern: {S O V[\]}:
- e.g.: They | the news | like | [not]. (as in Japanese, Turkish, …)
3) The preorder pattern: {[\]V S O}
- e.g.: [Not like] | they | the news. (as in a formal language, …)
where S is the subject, O the object, and [\] the optional negative modifier.
Would you let us know what the pattern(s) are in the languages as you know? A summary report on the survey findings will be posted on RG under this thread of discussions.
Actually, there are 6 possible patterns. However, the data I'm familiar with indicate that more than 90% of attested languages are either SVO or SOV. The other possible patterns have very few speakers. If anyone has more current data, please share.
Some updates are as follows:
1) The inorder pattern {S [\]V O}: English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, …
2) The postorder pattern {S O V[\]}: Japanese, Korean, Turkish, …
3) The preorder pattern {[\]V S O}: ...?
It’s curious to explore: a) If there is any natural language adopting Pattern 3 – the preorder pattern? b) What are the cognitive effects of such language patterns in thinking and expressions?
Classical Arabic as well as Celtic are examples of VSO word order. You might want to look at Comrie's book on linguistic typology. OVS and OSV languages are quite rare, but they do exist, although the number of native speakers for these is small.
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