In the affirmative sentence, for example, the object or the adverb may come first. The subject is then in the third position, the verb is in second place. If the sentence is complex, the second half of the sentence goes to the end of the sentence. As you can see, verb always takes second place in the affirmative.
The inverted order underlines whichever part of the sentence is in the first position.
| subject | predicate | other parts of the sentence | second part of the predicate | |
| Das Auto | sehe | ich. | ||
| In zwei Stunden | kommen | Monika und Johann | ||
| Lange | haben | wir | gearbeitet. |