Word order
Sentences
Sentences in Ravna are best not analyzed in terms of subjects and objects, but topic and comment. The sentence order is topic-comment-verb, which might appears as SOV or OSV if one uses subject-object model. When the comment includes both a subject and object, however, the subjects mostly comes first.
Modifiers
Modifiers (adjectives, adverbs) follow the words they modify.
Adverbials
While the rule for modifiers extends to spatial adverbial phrases, it should be noted that destination and origin are before a verb. Some examples for this rule:
| Ravna | English |
|---|---|
| I ran inside the forest. | |
| I ran into the forest. | |
| I ran out of the forest. |
Naturally, this applies for non-place destinations and sources as well. However, these words don't have to be directly before a verb
| Ravna | English |
|---|---|
| She gave me an apple. | |
| I fetched water from the creek. |
Instrumental adverbials behave just like normal adverbs:
| Ravna | English |
|---|---|
| He answered in Ravna. | |
| They travel on a boat. |
Temporal adverbials and other adverbials, however, either follow verbs:
| Ravna | English |
|---|---|
| Reva gets up at 6 every day. | |
| He has studied this topic since 5 years ago. | |
| Ze worked until midnight. | |
| He went to the river to fish. | |
| Would you do that for me? |
Exceptions
In a literary setting, especially in poetry, one can, and often breaks the rule of word order to either shift emphasis or for rhyming.