Is German a VO language or an OV language?

Question

While learning German, I came across something that really boggles the mind—my mind. While practising German on the Duolingo app, I noticed that German sentence structure is similar to that of English, i.e. VO structure. Like this sentence, for example:

Mein Bruder spielt manchmal Klavier.

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And what's with the position of the adverb? Do adverbs always come after the verbs?

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But when I searched German's sentence structure on internet, the Wikipedia showed that the sentence structure is actually OV.

The main difference that sets apart German sentence structure from that of English is that German is an OV (Object-Verb) language, whereas English is a VO (verb-object) language.

Who should I believe in this case? If there is something very obvious about this question, and because of that this questions seems stupid, then I am sorry. As I said, I am still new.

Answer 1

English is a SVO language.
SVO means: Subject, Verb, Object(s) in exactly this order.

But English is the only Germanic language with this word order. German and all other Germanic languages (Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and many others) are V2 languages.
V2 means: Verb at position 2.

SVO is a more strict subtype of V2.

In German the subject can be almost everywhere in the sentence, and at position 1 can be really everything (except the verb).

So, all these sentences are correct German sentences and they are used by German native speakers:

1. Mein Bruder spielt manchmal Klavier.
2. Manchmal spielt mein Bruder Klavier.
3. Klavier spielt mein Bruder manchmal.
4. Klavier spielt manchmal mein Bruder.

Example #2 also answers your question: Since everything can be at position 1, also an adverb can be there, which means, it can come before the verb.

Note also, that only the inflected verb stands at position 2. German sentences always contain a main verb and very often also an auxiliary verb (haben, sein, werden) and sometimes also a modal verb (dürfen, können, mögen, müssen, sollen, wollen). Only one of them will be inflected, and this inflected verb stands at position 2. All other verbs stand at the end of the sentence.

Morgen wird Barbara sicher nicht mit ihrem Bruder in seinem hässlichen und rostigen Auto schon um 8 Uhr morgens in die Hauptstadt fahren wollen.
_{Tomorrow Barbara will certainly not want to drive to the capital city with her brother in his ugly and rusty car already at 8 o'clock in the morning.}

There are 3 verbs in this sentence (marked bold). But only one of them (»wird«, a form of the auxiliary verb »werden«) is inflected to match with the subject in number (singular) and person (3^rd person). And only this inflected verb stands at position 2. All other verbs stand at the end.

Also note, that German has separable verbs. These are verbs that consists of two parts: The prefix and the main part. There are thousands of these verbs. What makes them special is, that this prefix can be split off from the main part and then stands at the very end of the sentence.

Here is an example: einschlafen = to fall asleep

Futur I: Jürgen wird einschlafen.
^{Jürgen will fall asleep.}
Präsens: Jürgen schläft ein.
^{Jürgen falls asleep.}

With some more parts in the sentence:

Jürgen schläft, soweit mir das bekannt ist, denn ich weiß das auch nur aus Erzählungen, an Freitagen und Samstagen niemals vor 22 Uhr ein.
_{Jürgen never falls asleep before 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, as far as I know, because I also only know this from stories.}

In this sentence the two "words" »schläft« and »ein« in fact are two parts of one word (a verb). So, also in this sentence only the inflected part of the verb stands at position 2, anything else that is a verb or belongs to a verb is at the end.

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Also note, like mentioned in some comments, this word order is only valid for statements.

In closed questions (requesting a yes/no-answer) the inflected verb stands at position 1.

Spielt dein Bruder manchmal Klavier?

Also in commands

Spielen Sie Klavier!

And in subordinate clauses all verbs (including the inflected verb) stand at the end of the sentence.

Ich habe gehört, dass dein Bruder manchmal Klavier spielt.

Answer 2

In main clauses, German uses V2 (the verb is on second position), and that means VO most of the time.

German (V2 -> VO): Julia ruft den Hund.
English (VO): Julia calls the dog.
Latin (OV): Iulia canem vocat.

However, thanks to the declined articles and cases that German has, it is more flexible, and you can use a different word order to emphasize parts of the sentence, as long as you stick to V2:

Den Hund ruft Julia.
Dem Hund gibt Julia einen Knochen. (Julia gives a bone to the dog.)
Einen Knochen gibt Julia dem Hund.

In subordinate clauses though, the finite verb goes to the last place and you get OV:

Ich hoffe, dass Julia den Hund füttert. (I hope that Julia feeds the dog.)

Therefore I don't agree to the quote from Wikipedia that German is an OV language. It uses V2 in main clauses and OV in subordinate clauses.

Adverbs can go to different positions, too, depending on whether you want to stress them. In standard order, as you noticed, they come after the verb in main clauses, so it's different from the English order.

Julia ruft laut den Hund.
Laut ruft Julia den Hund. (Note that the V2 rule also counts the adverb here.)
Julia ruft den Hund laut.
Ich höre, dass Julia laut den Hund ruft.

Answer 3

As the others have already pointed out, German is often analyzed as being a V2 language. However, there are reasons why some grammarians analyze it as an OV language. The main reason is that in infinite clauses, German has OV order:

1. ein Bild sehen
2. einen Baum pflanzen
3. ein Lied singen

A VO language like English has the exact opposite order:

4. to see a picture
5. to plant a tree
6. to sing a song

In some flavours of grammatical theory, the OV order as seen in infinite clauses is the underlying order for all German sentences, and the V2 order is just a surface form derived from it.

Answer 4

I agree with Hubert Schölnast and HalvarF but I'd like to add something that hasn't been mentioned yet:

As long as the V2 rule is followed, you can put the pieces of a sentence in almost any order you like. There are, however a few exceptions:

• The accusative object and the predicative go after the subject if they can't be told apart otherwise.
• The first piece of the sentence is usually something you want to put emphasis on.
• Some ordering options sound strange and should be avoided.

For instance:
• „Den Hund ruft laut Julia.“ sounds wrong
• „Den Hund ruft Julia laut.“ means something like “Julia is calling the dog loudly but she lowers her voice when she calls other pets”.

There are also sentence ordering options that would only be used regionally. For instance „Bereits liegt in der Schweiz Schnee.“ would be normal in Switzerland but not in Germany.

Answer 5

The real problem seems to be the definition of 'verb'. As the one essential of a German sentence is a finite verb, I take this to be the "real" verb, so that participles, infinitives and particles are subsidiary. Subordinate clauses are by definition subsidiary, so why treat them as primary? Only an academic with an agenda could see German as SOV.