Proto-Indo-European syntax

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) syntax refers to the structure and word order used in the ancient language believed to be the common ancestor of many European and South Asian languages. PIE likely had flexible word order, but it tended toward a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) pattern, where the subject comes first, then the object, followed by the verb. It also used inflections—endings on words—to indicate grammatical roles and relationships, making sentence structure less dependent on word order. This flexible yet systematically inflected syntax helped PIE speakers express clear meaning in their sentences.