WORD ORDER IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN SENTENCE TYPES

Sentences types and word order patterns are directly related to each other. When referring to sentence types, one must keep in mind that we do not refer to them according to their structure, but to their purpose, i.e., declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences. Word order, especially the S-V-O pattern, may vary depending on the type of the sentences.

The typical pattern of the subject, verb and object in English language is normally fixed because English is an analytical language. On the other hand, Albanian language has a free word order mainly because it is a synthetic language, and because of noun cases and verb inflections. For example, we can say ‘I bought a bike.’, but we cannot say ‘A bike bought I.’. However, in Albanian we can say ‘Unë bleva një biçikletë.’ and ‘Një biçikletë bleva unë.’, with a normal and inverted word order. This word order change in Albanian must not be confused with passive voice, i.e., when a subject and an object change their places. Syntactic functions do not change even after a word order change in Albanian language.

A word order with a S-V-O pattern is expected in declarative sentences, except for sentences with inverted word order in Albanian language. However, word order changes are expected in imperative and interrogative sentences in both languages. Subject position is normally different in these two types of sentences in both languages, but since Albanian language has a free word order, there may be sentences with a S-V-O pattern even in interrogative sentences. Finally, there are idioms with the same and different word order in English and Albanian language.