Subject After the Verb

• Colloquial Italian has a much freer syntactical construction than English and there are many examples when the usual order SUBJECT - VERB is reversed and the subject can occur at the end of the sentence. Examples (the subject is in red):
  
  ◊ Allora lo chiami tu Renato? ≡ Are you going to call Renato?
  ◊ Sei un vero amico tu ≡ You are a real friend!
  ◊ Verrà a prenderlo un suo amico ≡ A friend of his is going to fetch him
  ◊ Devo andare prima che arrivi l'insegnante ≡ I must go before the teacher arrives
  ◊ È una brava ragazza Barbara ≡ Barbara's a good girl
   

• The normal syntactical construction is usually possible as well. Examples:
  
  ◊ Allora tu chiami Renato... ≡ Are you going to call Renato?
  ◊ Tu sei un vero amico ≡ You are a real friend!
  ◊ Un suo amico verrà a prenderlo ≡ A friend of his is going to fetch him
  ◊ Devo andare prima che l'insegnante arrivi ≡ I must go before the teacher arrives
  ◊ Barbara è una brava ragazza ≡ Barbara's a good girl
   

• While both constructions are grammatically correct, there is often a fundamental difference: the SUBJECT - VERB construction tends to be more like an objective statement, whereas the VERB - SUBJECT order implies an emotional involvement in what you are saying.