Free word order: What order?

Using morphological means to express relations between words in a sentence considerably frees the order the words must appear. It is true that some orders feel more natural for a sentence, and Subject-Verb-Object is predominant in neutral everyday sentences, but a sentence is perfectly understandable even if the word order is absolutely wrong. If grammatical relations are signalled by suffixes, the position of words in the sentence is not important, but if there are no case endings available, the only means of indicating these relations is word order. This is why English has a rigid word order, but Estonian a free one.

The canonical example used by teachers is a sentence, consisting of four words tihti [often] taevas [in the sky] tähti [stars] nähti [were seen], where all combinations are equally possible and there are several candidates for the 'most comfortable' word order.

Nähti taevas tihti tähti

Nähti taevas tähti tihti

Nähti tihti taevas tähti

Nähti tihti tähti taevas

Nähti tähti taevas tihti

Nähti tähti tihti taevas

Taevas nähti tihti tähti

Taevas nähti tähti tihti

Taevas tihti nähti tähti

Taevas tihti tähti nähti

Taevas tähti nähti tihti

Taevas tähti tihti nähti

Tihti nähti taevas tähti

Tihti nähti tähti taevas

Tihti taevas nähti tähti

Tihti taevas tähti nähti

Tihti tähti nähti taevas

Tihti tähti taevas nähti

Tähti nähti taevas tihti

Tähti nähti tihti taevas

Tähti taevas nähti tihti

Tähti taevas tihti nähti

Tähti tihti nähti taevas

Tähti tihti taevas nähti