Language/Standard-arabic/Grammar/Word-order

Word order in Arabic

What is a language "Word Order"?

Word order refers to the orders in which words are structured to from a sentence in a given language.

Consider the English sentence: "I ate an apple".

First let's remove the article AN for simplicity. We are just left with "I ate apple".

The basic word order for English is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object).

If we break down the English sentence "I ate apple", we can see that the Subject "I" is presented first followed by the Verb "ate" and finally the Object "apple".

Word Order in Arabic

The Arabic is VSO language (Verb-Subject-Object).

Let's see the same sentence.

The Arabic is written from right to left.

The same sentence in Arabic reads: "Ate I apple".

The Verb comes first, then the Subject and finally the Object.

• NB: However, note that in Arabic, the subject after verb is pronounced and written explicitly.

If we combine the VSO structure and the fact that Arabic is written from right to left, we get the following sentence:

Object	Subject	Verb
تفاحة	انا	اكلت
apple	I	ate

Other Lessons

• THE PERFECT
• The definite and indefinite articles
• THE CASES OR DECLENSION OF NOUNS (Subjet, Direct and Indirec objects)
• THE DECLENSION OF THE SOUND FEMININE PLURAL
• THE IMPERFECT
• Adjectives
• Gender
• RELATIVE PRONOUNS
• Plural
• THE USE OF THE AFFIXED PERSONAL PRONOUNS