Syntax (Word Order)

I. Intro

We’re going to talk about subjects, objects, and word order in this lesson.

English has very strict rules regarding word order. The type of word order used in English is called SVO - Subject - Verb - Object. This means that the subject comes before the verb, which comes before the object, in virtually all sentences. Although Spanish has some more flexibility than English, the underlying structure is the same, and most Spanish sentences also follow SVO.

II. SVO

Let’s break this down a bit:

• The subject (S) is the doer.
• The verb (V) is the action, what gets done.
• The object (O) is the recipient of the action done by the subject - the thing that the action gets done to.

Now let’s take a look at a few examples in both languages:

1.

Ana (S)	compró (V)	un libro (O).
Ana (S)	bought (V)	a book (O).

2.

Ana (S)	compró (V)	un libro (O)	para Juan (O).
Ana (S)	bought (V)	a book (O)	for Juan (O).

III. Two types of objects

In both Spanish and English (and many, many other languages) we have direct objects and indirect objects. Not surprisingly, the direct object (DO) “directly” receives the action. It answers the question “what?”

The indirect object (IO) receives it “indirectly,” and answers the question “to whom?” or “for whom?” Let’s look at a very basic example in English: