Editing French grammar (section)

=== History ===
Modern French allows for fewer word orders than [[Latin grammar|Latin]] or [[Old French]], both of which Modern French has evolved from. In both Latin and Old French, all six potential word orders are possible:

* [[Subject-verb-object|Subject-verb-object (SVO)]]
* [[Verb-object-subject|Verb-object-subject (VOS)]]
* [[Object-subject-verb|Object-subject-verb (OSV)]]
* [[Subject-object-verb|Subject-object-verb (SOV)]]
* [[Object-verb-subject|Object-verb-subject (OVS)]]
* [[Verb-subject-object|Verb-subject-object (VSO)]]

While linguistic evolution occurs on a continuum, the major shift towards increased grammaticalization occurred in French most distinctly between the mid 12th century and end of the 15th century. It is believed that the progressive move towards SVO as the dominant French word order occurred during this time, as a result of a "progressive fixation of the subject in preverbal position from the fourteenth century on".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lahousse & Lamiroy|first=Karen & Beatrice|date=2010|title=Word Order in French, Spanish and Italian: A Grammaticalization Account|url=http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gmu/detail.action?docID=615884.:|journal=Folia Linguistica: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae.|volume=46|pages=396|via=EBSCOhost}}</ref>