Word order is important for

5 most important basic rules of word order in English

Everyone knows how much important is the order of words in English. It can be hard to describe it, but experts of our paper writing service will try to do it in several simple rules presented in this essay on the order of words in English. What kind of rules are these? Let’s see. It is necessary to know the language order of words because it helps to build and understand the simplest and the most complex sentence in English. This seemingly simple but extremely important issue is the starting point in the study of English grammar.

1. Subject + predicate + direct object

In an ordinary affirmative sentence, the subject is placed directly before a word that defines its action, so-called predicate or verb. Direct object, if in general an object is present in a sentence, follows the verb directly, i.e. it is placed rights after it. For example: “They bought a car”; “We can not do that”; “The girl in a blue dress was watching TV” and so on.

2. Predicate

Notice that a notion “subject” here implies not only the main noun or pronoun, but also adjectives and entire descriptive phrases, which have relation to the subject. The rest unity of sentence members is called “predicate”, since it does not have relation to the subject. For example: “The girl in a blue dress was playing the piano” – the part “The girl in a blue dress” is subject and “was playing the piano” is predicate. Visit our essay corrector service and contact our team if you need more information or any other kind of help or assistance on this issue.

3. Indirect object

If there are any other elements in a sentence, such as indirect objects or adverbials, then they usually take strictly defined position.

Indirect object position. Indirect object is placed after direct object if it contains preposition “to”. Indirect object is placed before direct object if preposition “to” misses. For example: “The teacher gave dictionaries to the pupils”, but “The teacher gave them dictionaries”.

4. Adverbial position

An adverbial may have three positions:

1) before subject (usually this is adverbial of time). For example: “In the morning he was reading a book”;

2) after object (here almost any adverb can be placed or adverbial phrase). For example: “He was reading a book at the library”;

3) between auxiliary and main verb. For example: “He has already read this book”.

5. Irregular word order in the English

Usually in regular English there are no other words between subject and its verb (predicate) or verb and its object. Of course, some exceptions exist, and we will consider the most important of them:

a) Use of objects (indirect) without “to” and use of adverbs (usually of frequency). For example: “I sometimes drink coffee in the morning”, “She showed the policeman her driving license”. All you need is to follow the simple rules presented above and you will manage to avoid word order mistakes in an English sentence. The examples given here are purposely very simple. However, the same rules can be applied to more complicated sentences with subordinate structures. For example: “The woman, (who often felt lonely), never left her house before (she had locked all the doors)”.

b) Stylistic change of word order. Of course, each rule has its exception (and sometimes a lot of them), and many people, especially writers and speakers, often use irregular word order to achieve special effect. But if now we focus attention on the exceptions, we will be distracted from the basic principles and consequently the order of words problem may seem to much complicated.

That is why here are some other examples. You should know that suchlike sentences exist, but use them only when you feel you can not avoid it, i.e. if it is inevitably and absolutely necessary, and especially try not to use them before you learn the principles of ordinary word order. Remember that it is necessary to learn to work first and only then to run. For example: “Never before had he felt so miserable”. If a sentence begins with “never” or “never before” the subject and predicate often undergo inversion, i.e. they have changed their positions. But do not use inversion in the sentences, in which when the subject is followed by “never”.

Another example: “Hardly had I finished cleaning the house, my friend called”. Subject and predicated must be always inverted if “hardly” is placed in a sentence beginning.

Inversion is also used in the structures of hypothetical condition when “if” is missed. For example: “Had they know, they would never have done that”.

In a sentence “Whatever you can tell me, I know already” the complex object “Whatever you can tell me” is placed in the beginning of the sentence for artistic reasons. Such a structure of a sentence is not obligatory; we are just talking about a way of a thought expression or a stylistic device.

Now having learnt the rules for simple sentences constructing you may proceed to more complex sentences that contain subordinate structures. By the way, if there are some doubts or you are not sure about your knowledge of grammar, you may use our online essay editor website; our professional writers, editors and other experts are always there to help you.

Word order in English: tips for the grammar knowledge improvement

1. As we have already said word order in English has a great importance. There are no cases in English (except the genitive or possessive case that defines belonging to a subject or a person) or their forms are very similar. So due to this fact it is very important to keep the word order. It is not difficult and even quite easy:

• subject is put first
• verb (predicate) follows the subject
• object (direct or indirect) is on the third place.

Sometimes if position of words is changed, then the whole meaning of a sentence may change. For example: “Irene saw Jon” or “Jon saw Irene”.

2. Sometimes a verb is placed on the first place and a subject is on the second. For example: “Did Irene see Jon?”. It means that this is an interrogative sentence. There are also other cases, in which the change of subject and verb places may be possible. The most common among them are the following:

a) “Let us go” – this is imperative mood.

b) “Had he used better means and tools, he would probably have been achieved much better result” – this is a conjunctionless conditional mood.

3. It may seem that this rule is simple, but still usually it can be hard to recognize it. First of all, subject is not always expressed with a noun. It may be expressed with a verb with “to” (infinitive), as in the following sentence, for example: “To be a good person, is to have not only a pure soul, but a clear mind as well”. Or it may be expressed with a whole sentence: “What mother means to us is the essence and sense of our life”.

Second of all, subject can be expressed with not just one word, but it can have a lot of clarifying words and even sentences, which create a subject group. For example: “The man I met yesterday was a magician”. The subject “the man” is extended by a subordinate clause. Before subordinate clause there should be conjunction “which / whom”, but in such short sentences conjunction is usually missed.

4. Very often, despite the rule and breaking it, adverbs and adverbial phrases of place and time are put in the sentence beginning. For example: “In spring nature begins to come back to life again”. There is usually a comma that separates the adverbs from the other parts of a sentence: “As always, she has to stay at home at night”. However, sometimes a comma is missed as a rule in newspapers and blogs: “In the meantime he made four films”. Additionally, they often place introductory words and phrases on the first place: “For the rest, he wanted them to know that if they have any trouble they can always call him and ask for any kind of help”.

All these examples are simple and do not cause difficulties. However, it is too early to sigh with a relief. The British, especially people with literary and scientific inclination, sometimes use their own word order, so that it can be hard to find subject, predicative or other sentence parts: “In spite of what they had told us, and they really believed their words to be an absolute truth, they were not ready to discuss or accept any other mind or opinion, so we did not even try to persuade them”. Such a breaking of regular word order usually happened due to emotional rise of an author.

5. Not only cases, but also parts of speech in English often have similar look and forms. For example, a word “captain” may be a noun, a verb and even other part of speech. Now this is obvious that it is important to look at what place a word in a sentence has. We have already talked about the positions of the main sentence parts, i.e. an object and a predicate. However, there is another interesting rule, and here it is: if after an article there are a lot of words, in this case only the last word in a subject, the rest is adjectives. For example: “I have some recording from the broken last year record player”. However, in a set of different adjectives one adjective may define not a noun but other adjective. Puns and jokes are offer occur because of that: “For the next several days she led a simple and even happy life her big aunt’s house (it means that the house was big, not the aunt)”.

What about objects, the rule is quite simple: direct object goes right after a verb, and then an indirect object follows. For example: “Her aunt bought her a new pretty dress and a necklace”.

So the word order in English gives clear Ariadne’s thread in translating the most complicated texts. However, exceptions and difficulties always remain.

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Word order is very important in English, because the language is no longer inflected. That is, individual words do not have endings to show which parts of speech they represent. Nevertheless this word order is not invariable. It is well-known that English is a language that strictly follows the syntax rules, in spite of this, exceptions do frequently occur.
Although English exhibits a relatively fixed word order in comparison to many other languages, the English word order is not as rigid as it is held: in many cases, speakers can choose between different constituent orderings or constructional alternations as exemplified in the following sentence pairs: John gave the book to Fred vs. John gave Fred the book, Which newspapers do we maintain strict editorial control over? vs. Over which newspapers do we maintain strict editorial control?, John picked up the book vs. John picked the book up, the President’s speech vs. the speech of the President.
So as it was already mentioned English stylistics allows a sort of flexibility in arranging words in a sentence, as a rule it is mostly common for literary works, both prose and poetry. The reason for this is that changes to conventional syntax are often used to create dramatic, poetic, or comic effect.
For instance, poets and song lyricists often change syntactic order to create rhythmic effects:
E.g. «I’ll sing to him, each spring to him
And long for the day when I’ll cling to him,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.»
According to Keenan ’s opinion the word order is prominent for its semantic and pragmatic roles. A standard view of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics would be something like the following: Semantics is primarily concerned with meanings that are relatively stable out of context, and analyzable in terms of the logical conditions under which they would be true. Pragmatics, by contrast is related both to the message’s indirect meaning beyond what is written, and to the reader’s interpretation, deriving from the context.
Finally, semantic roles are simpler than pragmatic ones. Semantic relations represent consistent common recognition of the objective world by the whole language community, while pragmatic role involves individual writers’ subjective, contingent knowledge, assumption, attitude, etc. Semantic relations can be seen as the essential, notional part of word order units, whereas pragmatic roles are not part of units, they are the packaging or the way of using units.
The semantically optimal order is homogeneous from the general point of view; while the criteria for ‘basic order’ are diverse in the literature. The reason for this is the fact that literature is a noble art that changes neck-to-neck with its basic instrument – the language which is constantly developing. The literary style has a tendency to be diversified; the writers’ aim is to achieve some elevated effect on the reader that is why they do not follow strict syntax rules. In this manner they make their works unique, vivid and outstanding.
Generally speaking, the role of word order is to transmit the message so as it could be easily perceived by the reader.
What concerns the word order in different writing styles, its primary role is to emphasize some particular message carried by the sentence and to produce a colorful and deep effect on the reader.

1. What is Word Order?

Word order is important: it’s what makes your sentences make sense! So, proper word order is an essential part of writing and speaking—when we put words in the wrong order, the result is a confusing, unclear, and an incorrect sentence.

2.Examples of Word Order

Here are some examples of words put into the correct and incorrect order:

I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters at home. CORRECT

2 brothers and 2 sisters have I at home. INCORRECT

I am in middle school. CORRECT

In middle school I am. INCORRECT

How are you today? CORRECT

You are how today? INCORRECT

As you can see, it’s usually easy to see whether or not your words are in the correct order. When words are out of order, they stand out, and usually change the meaning of a sentence or make it hard to understand.

3. Types of Word Order

In English, we follow one main pattern for normal sentences and one main pattern for sentences that ask a question.

a. Standard Word Order

A sentence’s standard word order is Subject + Verb + Object (SVO). Remember, the subject is what a sentence is about; so, it comes first. For example:

The dog (subject) + eats (verb) + popcorn (object).

The subject comes first in a sentence because it makes our meaning clear when writing and speaking. Then, the verb comes after the subject, and the object comes after the verb; and that’s the most common word order. Otherwise, a sentence doesn’t make sense, like this:

Eats popcorn the dog. (verb + object + subject)

Popcorn the dog eats. (object + subject + verb)

B. Questions

When asking a question, we follow the order auxiliary verb/modal auxiliary + subject + verb (ASV). Auxiliary verbs and modal auxiliaries share meaning or function, many which are forms of the verb “to be.” Auxiliary verbs can change form, but modal auxiliaries don’t. Here’s a chart to help you:

As said, questions follow the form ASV; or, if they have an object, ASVO. Here are some examples:

Can he cook?  “Can” (auxiliary) “he” (subject) “cook” (verb)

Does your dog like popcorn?  “Does” (A) “your dog” (S) “like” (V) “popcorn” (O)

Are you burning the popcorn? “Are” (A) “you” (S) “burning” (V) “popcorn” (O)

4. Parts of Word Order

While almost sentences need to follow the basic SVO word order, we add other words, like indirect objects and modifiers, to make them more detailed.

a. Indirect Objects

When we add an indirect object, a sentence will follow a slightly different order. Indirect objects always come between the verb and the object, following the pattern SVIO, like this:

I fed the dog some popcorn.

This sentence has “I” (subject) “fed” (verb) “dog” (indirect object) “popcorn” (direct object).

b. Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases also have special positions in sentences. When we use the prepositions like “to” or “for,” then the indirect object becomes part of a prepositional phrase, and follows the order SVOP, like this:

I fed some popcorn to the dog.

Other prepositional phrases, determining time and location, can go at either the beginning or the end of a sentence:

            He ate popcorn at the fair.      -Or-     At the fair he ate popcorn.

      In the morning I will go home.            I will go home in the morning.

c. Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, adding things like time, manner, degree; and often end in ly, like “slowly,” “recently,” “nearly,” and so on. As a rule, an adverb (or any modifier) should be as close as possible to the thing it is modifying. But, adverbs are special because they can usually be placed in more than one spot in the sentence and are still correct. So, there are rules about their placement, but also many exceptions.

In general, when modifying an adjective or adverb, an adverb should go before the word it modifies:

The dog was extremely hungry. CORRECT adverb modifies “hungry”

Extremely, the dog was hungry. INCORRECT misplaced adverb

The extremely dog was hungry. INCORRECT misplaced adverb

The dog was hungry extremely. INCORRECT misplaced adverb

As you can see, the word “extremely” only makes sense just before the adjective “hungry.” In this situation, the adverb can only go in one place.

When modifying a verb, an adverb should generally go right after the word it modifies, as in the first sentence below. BUT, these other uses are also correct, though they may not be the best:

The dog ran quickly to the fair. CORRECT * BEST POSITION

Quickly the dog ran to the fair. CORRECT

The dog quickly ran to the fair. CORRECT

The dog ran to the fair quickly. CORRECT

For adverbs expressing frequency (how often something happens) the adverb goes directly after the subject:

The dog always eats popcorn.

He never runs slowly.

I rarely see him.

Adverbs expressing time (when something happens) can go at either the beginning or of the end of the sentence, depending what’s important about the sentence. If the time isn’t very important, then it goes at the beginning of the sentence, but if you want to emphasize the time, then the adverb goes at the end of the sentence:

Now the dog wants popcorn. Emphasis on “the dog wants popcorn”

The dog wants popcorn now. Emphasis on “now”

5. How to Use Avoid Mistakes with Word Order

Aside from following the proper SVO pattern, it’s important to write and speak in the way that is the least confusing and the most clear. If you make mistakes with your word order, then your sentences won’t make sense. Basically, if a sentence is hard to understand, then it isn’t correct. Here are a few key things to remember:

• The subject is what a sentence is about, so it should come first.
• A modifier (like an adverb) should generally go as close as possible to the thing it is modifying.
• Indirect objects can change the word order from SVO to SVIO
• Prepositional phrases have special positions in sentences

Finally, here’s an easy tip: when writing, always reread your sentences out loud to make sure that the words are in the proper order—it is usually pretty easy to hear! If a sentence is clear, then you should only need to read it once to understand it.

English is a strange language. A case in point can be made with these two similar sentences:

Could you please let me know where I can find the book?                                                                  Please let me know where I can find the book.

Try explaining to someone who is not a native speaker the difference between the two written sentences above. The difference is not that one is a question and the other is a statement, because they are both asking for the same thing. The difference is the tone. And that difference in English composition is often embedded in word order, the way the words are arranged in the sentence.

Word order in English is important, because it can change the spirit, meaning or fluency of a sentence. Basically, it’s considered an SVO language, like such Romance languages as Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian, meaning that generally sentences follow the Subject-Verb-Object pattern. But it’s more complicated than that when subtleties need to be expressed or when descriptions need to be detailed.

Regarding spirit or tone: the first sentence in our example, worded as a question, could easily be interpreted by someone reading it in an email, for example, as being asked with irritation. Same with this example, “Can you please amend the deadline?” It sounds like the person asking the question is stressed and really needs for the deadline to be changed. But that’s not the case with the statement, “Please amend the deadline.” No irritation is transmitted by this wording. Placing “Please” at the beginning of the sentence makes all the difference in terms of tone and comprehension.

Now consider the following two sentences:

He genuinely needs to do that.                                                                                                                He needs to do that genuinely.

They use the same words, but they differ in meaning. The first signifies that the person really needs to do something, while the second means that the person must do something honestly or with sincerity. The word order is important here not to convey feeling or tone, but to impart a particular sense or interpretation.

Another consideration regarding the order of words concerns fluency or accuracy. The placing of adjectives is particularly problematic in English for those learning the language. Native speakers learn the order as if by osmosis, and many don’t even realize there is a particular sequence. They just know where the words need to go depending on what they want to communicate.

Perhaps this list will help students of English place adjectives in the correct order. Found on the internet, this information was posted by a teacher at a school in California, USA back in 2009:

The proper order of adjectives is listed below along with some examples for each category.
1. Determiners – a, an, the, my, your, several, etc.
2. Observations – lovely, boring, stimulating, etc.
3. Size – tiny, small, huge, etc.
4. Shape – round, square, rectangular, etc.
5. Age – old, new, ancient, etc.
6. Color – red, blue, green, etc.
7. Origin – British, American, Mexican, etc.
8. Material – gold, copper, silk, etc.
9. Qualifier – limiters for compound nouns.

Here are some examples (by Thomas Williams, teacher at EC San Diego English School):
“The interesting, small, rectangular, blue car is parked in my space.”
“I bought a beautiful, long, red, Italian, silk tie.”
“My father lives in a lovely, gigantic, ancient, brick house.”
“I have an annoying, small, circular, American, tin, alarm clock that wakes me up.”
“Let’s order a delicious, huge, rectangular, pepperoni pizza.”
“We all love our smart, petite, British teacher.”
“They all received several dazzling, small, ancient, gold coins.”
“She owns a stunning, large, old, brown dog named Boris.”

The following chart is also helpful. If you have trouble learning it by heart, then keep it handy!

Also on the point of accuracy or fluency, written as well as spoken English uses many compound verbs, which are multi-word groups that act as a single verb. Examples include to “give up” (to “abandon”; “cease making an effort; admit defeat”) or to “give for” (to “offer”) and to “look up” (to “search”; “improve”). The separate words making up the verb must be placed in the sentence correctly. It’s accurate to write, for instance, “I gave her a sweater for her birthday”, but not, “I gave her for her birthday a sweater”. Another fluent sentence is, “I looked the word up in the dictionary”, and not “I looked up the word in the dictionary”, although the latter is often used.

Idioms, those word groups that have particular meaning not deducible from the individual words, also have a particular word order in English. Take, for example, this one: “to check at the door”, which means “to get rid of before entering someplace”. Correct usage is “to check something at the door”, such as, “to check your attitude at the door”. It would not be correct to write, “She checked at the door her attitude.”

The order of wording of compound verbs and idioms ties back to the usual Subject-Verb-Object construction of the English tongue, with added complexity. The object in the last sample sentence is the something, i.e. the “attitude”, so it has a specific place in the phrase. And where is that? Referring back to our examples above, a simple way to remember what’s proper is to substitute the word “it” for the thing/object. So: “she checked it at the door”, not “she checked at the door it”; “to give it for a birthday”, not “to give for a birthday it”; and “to look it up”, not “to look up it”.

But English, as all languages, changes with time. Few stop to think about the proper placement of words in a sentence when they write, although doing so would improve clarity and ensure the right message is getting across. With lackadaisical use over time, however, the nuances of meaning may decline and with them precision as well as full knowledge and understanding.

The main
function of word order is to
express grammati­cal relations and determine the grammatical
status of a word by
fixing its position in the sentence. There exist two ways of
arranging words — direct
word order
and inverted
word order.

6.2 Direct word order

The most
common pattern for the arrangement of the main parts in a declarative
sentence is
Subject — Predicate — (Object),
which is called direct
word order. Direct word order is also employed in pronominal
questions to the subject or to its attribute.

Direct word
order
allows of only few variations
in the fixed pattern, and then only for the secondary parts. Thus if
there are two objects, the indirect one precedes the direct one, or
the prepositional follows the direct one. Thus
the pattern has the following form:

Subject — Predicate —

Indirect object — Direct object Direct object — Prepositional object

The birds have come.

Ann has seen this film.

As to other
secondary parts of the sentence, such as attributes and adverbial
modifiers, their position is less fixed. Usually those words that are
closely connected tend to be placed together. Accordingly secondary
parts referring to their headwords are placed close to them, or are
incorporated into, or else frame them up. Thus attributes either
premodify or postmodify or frame up their headwords: a bright
morning, the problems involved,
the
scene familiar
to us, the happiest
man alive,
the best
skier in
the world.

Adverbials and different form
words seem to be the most movable parts in the sentence. Their
mobility is partly accounted for by their varied reference to
different parts of the sentence.

6.3 Inverted word order

Another
common pattern of word order is the inverted one (or inversion). We
distinguish full
inversion
(when the predicate precedes the subject, as in Here
comes the lady of the house)
and partial
inversion (when
only part of the predicate precedes the subject, as in Happy
may you be!).
Some grammarians also distinguish double
inversion
(when parts of the predicate are placed separately before the
subject, as in Hanging
on the wall was a picture).

In some cases inversion may be
taken as a normal order of words in constructions with special
communicative value, and is thus devoid of any special colouring. In
other cases inversion is a sort of reordering for stylistic effect or
for emphasis. First we enumerate those cases where inversion is a
normal word order.

Inversion
is used
to distinguish between the communicative types of sentences.

6.4 The emphatic and communicative functions of word order

The second
function of word order is to
make prominent or emphatic
that part of the sentence which is more important or informative in
the speaker’s opinion. These two functions (to express prominence
or information focus, and emphasis) are different in their purpose,
but in many cases they go together or overlap, and are difficult to
differentiate.

Prominence
and emphasis are achieved by placing the word
in an unusual position:
words normally placed at the beginning of the sentence (such as the
subject) are placed towards the end, whereas words usually occupying
positions closer to the end of the sentence (such as objects and
predicatives) are shifted to the beginning.

End
position is always emphatic
for the subject.
Very often this reor­dering results in the detachment of the
subject.

Must have
cost a pretty penny, this
dress of yours!

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