linguistics1-5  Exercise 3: Word Order
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(a) Japanese

  Tarō   wa        ringo   o        tabeta
  Taro   [topic]   apple   [object] ate

  Order: S O V (the verb comes last).
  Postpositions, not prepositions: the markers wa and o come AFTER the noun
  they go with (Tarō wa, ringo o), as does the place word ni in "Tōkyō ni"
  ("Tokyo to"). English has the opposite pattern: "to Tokyo", with the
  preposition first. SOV languages tend to put their helper words after the
  noun; SVO languages tend to put them before.

(b) Esperanto

  Base sentence:    La hundo mordis la viron.     (the dog bit the man)

  Three other correct orders, all with the same meaning:

    La viron mordis la hundo.
    Mordis la hundo la viron.
    La hundo la viron mordis.

  In every version "viron" carries the object ending -n, so it is always the
  man who is bitten, and "hundo" without -n is always the biter.

Why English cannot do this:

  English has no ending on the noun to show its role. "The man bit the dog"
  swaps the roles, because only position tells you who is subject and who is
  object. In Esperanto the ending carries the information, so position is
  free to be used for emphasis instead.