In Filipino, a basic sentence consists of a subject, a verb, and an object.
In the examples on this page, the subject is in red, verb in blue and object is in green.
1. Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) syntax
A sentence is in the SVO order when the subject comes first followed by the verb then by the object as in the sentence "Si Maria ay pupunta sa simbahan." English translation is "Maria is going to church."
2. Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) syntax
In the VSO order, the verb is first, subject is next and by the object. Our example becomes "Pupunta si Maria sa simbahan".
3. Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) syntax
In this syntax, the verb comes first followed by the object then by the subject. Our example now reads "Pupunta sa simbahan si Maria".
The general characteristic of the Filipino language is that words (mga salita) are not directly combined to make a sentence, but first into intermediate units called phrases, before being combined into sentences.
There are 3 phrases in our example, "Si Maria", "ay pupunta" and "sa simbahan".
Notes:
The word "si" in Filipino has no equivalent in English. It is a word that is used to refer to a person only. See full description in the Nouns page.
The word "ay" is not used in the VSO syntax.