A B S T R A C TThis article explores the relationship between the global functions of variable subject-verb order and morpholexical class of subjects in the spoken Arabic of the Arabian peninsula. Using corpus-based methods, it is shown that lexical class -pronoun, pronominal, noun-definiteness, and the discourse-defined lexical specificity of a noun all correlate significantly with subject-verb or verb-subject word order. The global function of the two orders is explored using an array of measures to show that verb-subject order prototypically presents events, while subject-verb signals available referentiality. Using the quantitatively based study of Anthony Naro and Sebastiao Votre ([1999]. Discourse motivations for linguistic regularities: Verb/subject order in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Probus 11:75-100.) on Brazilian Portuguese as a point of comparison, a typological framework is developed for understanding languages with variable subject-verb order.This article examines subject-verb (SV) word order in three varieties of Arabic spoken on the Arabian peninsula, showing that SV order is broadly sensitive to two sets of factors. The first encompasses formal and categorical properties of the nominals in subject position, properties such as lexical class (pronoun, noun, or pronominal), definiteness, and length of subject phrases. The second pertains to the discourse-pragmatic status of the subject. In addition to detailing how the Research for this article was supported by the