Spanish Pronominal Word Order

Spanish is classified as an SVO language. The sentence David tiene dos hermanas (David has two sisters) expresses this word order. However, with personal pronouns the order can be different.

The sentence David wants to see you can be expressed in Spanish in three different ways. They are 1) David quiere verte; 2) David te quiere ver; 3) Te quiere ver David. Here are the word orders of the three sentences:

1) SVO
2) SOV
3) OVS

Since Spanish is an SVO language, the first sentence can be considered underlying. In the second sentence, the verb and object are inverted and in the third the subject is placed at the end. Since the pronoun te is distinct from the subject pronoun tú, the different word orders cause no confusion.

Though Spanish is an SVO language, different word orders occur with personal pronouns. Spanish has a more flexible word order than English. This can be observed in Spanish pronominal word order.