Object–verb–subject word order

In the passive voice, The apples were eaten by Sam, the order is reversed and so that patient is followed by the verb and then the agent.

However, the apples become the subject of the verb, were eaten, which is modified by the prepositional phrase, by Sam, which expresses the agent, and so the usual subject–verb–(object) order is maintained.

Rare examples of valid if idiomatic English use of OVS typology are the poetic hyperbaton "Answer gave he none" and "What say you?"

Although not dominant, OVS may be used when the object is stressed in languages that have a relatively free word order because of case marking such as Romanian, Croatian, Basque, Esperanto, Hungarian, Finnish, Russian, and to some extent German and Dutch.

Here are Norwegian examples of using OVS to emphasize the object: Det tror jeg ikke (lit.

For example, declarative statements in Danish are ordinarily SVnO, with "n" being is the position of negating or modal adverbs.

The flexibility of word order in Russian also allows for OVS sentences, generally to emphasize the subject: Я закончил задание (lit.

Desmond C. Derbyshire and Geoffrey K. Pullum note that some SOV languages (such as Wichita) allow rightward movement of the subject noun phrase in certain sentences, producing OVS as a marked word order.