WE all know that when a sentence uses a transitive verb as the operative verb, it's absolutely necessary for the subject to take a direct object and to act on it: 'The woman spurned her suitor last ...

Even more unusual is the way Yoda famously speaks, ordering his sentences object-subject-verb, or OSV: The lightsaber Yoda grasped.

Early humans most likely spoke like Yoda, with a subject-object-verb word order, according to new research.